(Anáhuac) Drought has killed thousands of fish with the drying up of a lake in northern Mexico, an AFP photographer noted on Wednesday.
Volunteers threw lime on Wednesday to prevent rotting fish corpses from causing disease around Lake Bustillos (3,300 km2) in Chihuahua state.
A foul odor emanates from the area and in some places the marshy ground makes it difficult for vehicles used to collect dead fish to pass through.
The town hall of the neighboring town, Cuauhtémoc, had published an announcement: “We are looking for temporary staff to clean the Bustillos lagoon.”
Water levels are on average less than 50% of their usual level, according to local authorities.
“With the decrease in the quantity of water, pollutants become more concentrated and affect the species that live here,” Irma de la Peña Meraz, head of the Ecology department of the town of Cuauhtémoc, explained to the press.
The first dead fish appeared a week ago.
As of May 31, moderate, extreme or exceptional drought affected 89.58% of Mexican territory (nearly two million km2), according to a map from the National Water Commission (Conagua).
Temperature records were broken, even in the capital Mexico City with nine million inhabitants, with 34.2 degrees.
