Thousands of fish suffocate in Leicester city centre river

Thousands of mature and young fish died

Thousands of fish have died along a stretch of the River Soar in Leicester after oxygen levels in the water plummeted in the hot weather.

Charity volunteers discovered the bodies of suffocated fish while clearing plastic from the river.

They said the volume of dead creatures caused a "putrid stink" near to St Nicholas Circle as they rotted in the heat.

The Environment Agency said it was aware of the fish deaths.

UOCEAN's Chris Desai said the smell of dead fish was unbearable

Chris Desai, founder of the conservation charity UOCEAN, told the BBC the river in the city was "in crisis".

He said: "I first started getting messages [about the dead fish] on Thursday night when someone said there were fish literally trying to jump out of the river onto the bank.

"I went down there the next day and even before I saw the water I caught a putrid stink of rotting fish.

"What we then saw in the water was heartbreaking - thousands of dead fish.

"There were large adults two feet in length as well as baby fish.

"Unfortunately you could see the river was in crisis. This is the sort of event that it can take years for fish stocks to recover from."

Mr Desai said the city centre river had too much litter in it but that had not caused the deaths on this occasion

Tests carried out by the charity showed oxygen levels in the water had dropped to 7%.

Mr Desai said: "Fish can normally manage at 40% - which is still not great - but they had no chance here.

"The heat had literally evaporated the river, causing it to become very shallow. That left too many fish competing for too little oxygen.

"The heat also caused the algae to bloom and when that happens it sucks even more oxygen from the water. There were multiple reasons this happened."

He said the river had an issue with plastic pollution, from discarded litter, but that was not the cause of the incident.

Mr Desai said deploying an aeriation boat that pumps oxygen into that part of the river could help prevent future incidents.

He said his charity would fund a boat and he would discuss the issue with Leicester City Council and the Environment Agency.