Tonnes of dead fish raise stink in Rio

My sister went on a cruise in South America around the time swine flu was hitting the ocean liner that was forced to dock off the coast. Her cruise liner was never effected by swine flu but she did say she went diving when the cruise ship had stopped off and she said when she got out of the water she was covered with a thin layer of oil all over. She said the dive leader then told them about the oil spill. And the dive leader said a ship had sank and it was leaking oil in the water not to worry about it.

Chile is just across South America from Rio, so I have to infer that this could have been caused by large amounts of toxic gases released in the 8.8 Earthquake. I don't believe it to be algae. Just my opinion.

The truth is that almost all beaches from Rio are extremelly polluted. If you want to swim in Rio, shut your mouth or otherwise you may swallow some unpleasant things.
The same happens in all other beaches in Brazil that are located in places overpopulated (Rio de janeiro metro area has about 8 million people and more than 50% of the sewage goes straight to the beaches. That's lots of # floating in the sea!
What happened in Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas has happenend many times in the past. The level of pollution just reched its point of saturation.

They didn't really specify what the drop of temperature was in, ...

Tonnes of dead fish raise stink in Rio

Experts say the mass death could be the result of an abrupt temperature change, falling 10 degrees centigrade in 24 hours.

Here in Florida, almost every winter we have a big "fish kill" every time the temperature drops below 30 degrees for an extended period of time.

This includes snook and many other kinds of fish.

This also happens in a lagoon near where I live.

Maybe it just never happened in Rio before because the temperature has never gotten that LOW before?

I believe this is just a natural occurring event in sub-tropical areas when a very cold front passes thru.

[edit to ADD]

Just checked Rio's weather history, ...

History for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
It says in the last couple days, the lowest the temperature got was 69 degrees and the high for that day was 71 degrees.

Compare that to the average temperature which is 73 to 84 degrees and you'll see there's not that much difference.

The only real diffence is that for a couplew of days before that their high's were in the 90's.

Could be something with the sudden drop of the barometric pressure caused this?

Seems unlikely, but also seems unlikely that a low temperature of 69 degrees was killing off the fish also.

[edit on 3/1/2010 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


Its not winter in Rio. Heres last months weather for Rio.

www.wunderground.com...

77/73 was the lowest on 2/18/10
100/77 was the highest on 2/16/10

[edit on 1-3-2010 by JBA2848]

reply to post by 911stinks


Like I said in my original post, its no big deal. Kansas has fish kills almost every year especially in Cheney Lake, its a part of life. Contact the Kansas Fur Fish and Game and they will tell you about fish kills; they are common. Bigger bodies of water can and do have more fish die off than smaller bodies of water.

Did you see the list I posted? It was actually a very large list, yet it is only a very small percentage of reported fish kills.