Pollutants and toxins washed into a major Ho Chi Minh City canal by consecutive early-morning rains over the past two days have killed massive amounts of fish and forced many more to rise to the surface for oxygen.

Hundreds of dead fish began rising to the surface of the 8.7-kilometer Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal on Thursday morning, the result of unseasonal rainfall early Wednesday and Thursday mornings which disrupted the canal’s delicate ecosystem.

According to officials, toxic organic matter from nearby storm drains was pushed into the canal by rainwater, leading to the mass fish death.

Additionally, low tides also caused the water level in the canal to drop, allowing toxic gases from the bottom of the canal to be aerated into the water, depleting oxygen levels and suffocating fish.

A large number of fish could be seen early Thursday morning swimming toward the surface in an attempt to find oxygen.

Workers from an urban environmental company rode on motorboats to retrieve dead fish and pollutants from the canal later that same day.

Some local residents also collected the dead fish for food, but officials have warned that fish from the polluted waterway present a serious food safety hazard.

This is not the first time fish have died on the Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe canal following rains in Ho Chi Minh City.

In May 2016, a similar situation in which rainfall washed polluted water into the canal led to the deaths of 70 metric tons of fish.

The Nhieu Loc–Thi Nghe canal snakes through District 1, District 3, Phu Nhuan District, Binh Thanh District and Tan Binh District.

Heavily polluted and dubbed a ‘dead canal’ in the 1950s, it was revitalized following an expensive clean-up project, the first phase of which was completed in 2012.

The canal suffers from pollution due to its link to a sewage system which services many neighborhoods in Tan Binh District, said Tran Van Son, deputy head of the agency charged with inspecting water quality in Ho Chi Minh City.

“The water [of Nhieu Loc–Thi Nghe] is almost stagnant, while other canals in the city are linked with nearby waterways and connect to the Saigon River,” he elaborated.

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