WIDUCHOWA: On August 11, residents of the Polish village of Widuchowa realised an ecological catastrophe that began in late July in the nation’s south-west was going towards the Baltic Sea as hundreds of dead fish surrounded the banks of the Oder River.
The government started a crisis response that many experts claim was too late as Widuchowa people looked for tools to pull the dead bodies from the river.The mayor of Widuchowa, which is about 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the village where dead fish had first been found, Pawel Wrobel, stated, “It’s been the hardest five days of my life.” “I’d never anticipated going through such a disaster, it’s something you only see in disaster movies,” the speaker said. He gathered dozens of pitchforks, which are often used to pull potatoes, with the assistance of the neighbourhood to remove the dead fish from the river, which serves as a portion of the Polish-German border.
We learn from our mistakes because we don’t know how to do it or what tools to utilise, according to Wrobel.On August 12, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki sacked the leaders of Poland’s general environmental inspectorate and national water management authority, claiming that their organisations should have reacted sooner.
It is still unknown what contaminated the Oder, Poland’s second-largest river, despite countless examinations of fish and water samples performed by Polish and foreign laboratories, as well as a $1 million (US$211,775) incentive for information on the cause of contamination.
