The scene that greeted the residents of this northern Luzon seaside town one morning last February seemed straight out of the pages of the Bible's Old Testament. Overnight, the coastal waters had turned red and murky, resembling a vast pool of contaminated blood. Evoking images of the first of 10 plagues that Moses had cast upon Egypt, tons of dead fish were soon floating on the red waters. In the next couple of days, the sea breeze would reek of nothing but the stench of decomposing fish as the tide swept them back to shore.

Pabico, A. P. (2002, June 17). No biblical curse, this fish kill. Today, p. 5.