Greek authorities began collecting hundreds of thousands of dead fish this week after last year's floods forced them from their normal freshwater habitats and washed into the tourist port of the central city of Volos.
The floating carcasses laid a silvery blanket across the harbor, releasing a foul stench, alarming residents and authorities who rushed to remove the bodies before the stench spread to nearby restaurants and hotels.
“It stretches over several kilometres,” city council member Stelios Limnios told Reuters, “not only along the coast but also in the centre of Pagasetic Bay,” he said, referring to a coastal area lined with villas off the coast of Volos.
Trawlers were dragging nets to collect fish and load them onto trucks on Wednesday, with more than 40 tonnes having been collected in the past 24 hours, officials said.
Volos Mayor Achilleas Beos said the smell was unbearable. At a press conference on Wednesday, the mayor blamed the government for not addressing the problem before it reached the city. The rotting fish could pose an environmental disaster for other living things in the area, he said.
Experts say the problem was caused by historic floods that inundated the Thessaly plain further north last year, refilling a nearby lake that had been drained in 1962 to combat malaria, swelling it to three times its usual size.
Since then, the lake's waters have receded dramatically, forcing freshwater fish into Pagasetic Gulf and the port of Volos, which empties into the Aegean Sea, where they can no longer survive.
Experts said there were no nets at the mouth of the river that flows into Volos, meaning the fish were likely killed by the saltwater when they reached the sea.
“They didn't take the obvious step of putting up a protective net,” Mayor Beos said of government services.
The environment ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Local prosecutors have ordered an investigation.
The disaster is the latest fallout from extreme weather in Greece that scientists link to climate change, including rising temperatures and erratic rainfall that has led to wildfires and floods.
Dimosthenis Bakoyiannis, 33, who runs a beach restaurant 10 kilometres (6 miles) from Volos, said his business has fallen 80 percent this summer because of the lack of tourists after the floods.
“Closing the barrier now won't help anything,” he said. “It's too late now. The tourist season is over.”
“This dead fish situation is a disaster for us,” said Stefanos Stefanou, president of the local restaurant and bar association. “What tourists will come to our city after this?”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.