From inquirer global nation

Residents gather, eat dead fish floating in barangay Ibo
By Jucell Marie Cuyos, Doris C. Bongcac
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 09:08:00 12/18/2010


Maribel Mori asked her teenage son to fetch water yesterday morning.

Michael John came back with a pail of fish locally known as “potpot.”

He and other residents had collected the fish, which were floating dead along the coastal waters of barangay Ibo, in Lapu-Lapu City.

A few hours after eating the fish, which was cooked with vinegar as inun-onan for breakfast, Maribel was at the barangay health center complaining of nausea, vomiting and headache.

She told health workers she started to feel sick after eating the fish.

“Murag nang hugot akong panit unya ni init akong nawng (It felt like my skin tightened and my face burned),” said Mori.

Health and fishery officials yesterday started looking into the origin and cause of the fishkill in barangay Ibo, where thousands of fish have turned up dead.

Pollution is the most common cause of a fishkill.

But Dr. Rodulfo Berame, chief of the City health Department, said it could also be a result of the seasonal low tide in December.

He warned Ibo residents not to eat the dead fish or sell it pending results of a laboratory examination.

Samples of the seawater and fish were gathered by city health personnel yesterday. Results will be known after three to four days.

Health workers will check the quality of the seawater for chemical oxygen demand (COD) and its biological oxygen demand (BOD).


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