A single night’s power outage stopped the aerators in a fish enclosure for a few hours. That alone was enough to send oxygen levels in the water plummeting. When farmers went to check the enclosure at dawn, they found thousands of dead fish floating on the surface. Farm owners say the incident, at Sonamukho Bil in Sharsha’s Raipur-Bahadurpur union, has cost them about 155 million taka in losses.
Those affected said power supply to the enclosure area went out for an extended period starting around 1 a.m. Friday night. Without electricity, the mechanical aerators that supply artificial oxygen to the water also stopped working. As a result, natural oxygen levels in the water also began falling rapidly. Fish began dying before dawn broke.
Entrepreneurs Alfazul Haque and Faruk Hossain jointly built the “AF Fisheries Farm” at Sonamukho Bil. They say the pabda and other fish species raised at the farm had reached market-ready size. The sudden power outage killed a large portion of that stock, causing major financial losses in a single night.
Alfazul Haque said about 35 million taka worth of fish feed had been bought on credit from local traders to feed the market-ready fish, with plans to repay that debt once the fish were sold. That plan has now collapsed because of the sudden disaster.
He said: “We had taken about 35 million taka worth of market-ready fish feed on credit from local traders. Now, in a single night, we’ve suffered a loss this large. We’re at a loss over how we’ll repay this debt.” Fellow farmer Faruk Hossain said: “About a hundred families depend directly or indirectly on the income from this farm. The power outage after 1 a.m. created an oxygen crisis. We lost everything in a single night.”
Those connected to the farm say a large share of the quality pabda produced there was exported to India through an international supply chain. The farm’s output, in other words, was tied not just to local business but also to foreign-currency earnings.
But those involved say that supply chain has also been disrupted after the sudden power outage killed such a large volume of fish.
The affected entrepreneurs allege that no official from the upazila administration, the Department of Fisheries or the electricity department has yet visited the site since the fish died. The farmers are demanding a swift site visit to produce an official damage assessment, along with an investigation into the cause of the power outage, financial assistance for those affected, and rehabilitation loans on easy terms.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report