More than 8,000 fish were found dead in a dam in Ranchi, following which the fisheries department ordered a probe into the incident, an official said on Sunday.

Fish, weighing 500 gm to 1 kg, were found dead in four cages laid for fish rearing in Getalsud dam, district fishery officer Arup Kumar Chaudhary told PTI.

Jharkhand agriculture minister Badal Patralekh ordered a probe into the incident on Saturday evening. Badal directed the department secretary to carry out a probe into the matter on Sunday and submit a report at the earliest.

Chaudhary said he and his team would visit the dam during the day and try to find out how the fish died. “There might be several reasons for the death of fish such as lack of oxygen, diseases or pollution. We suspect a lack of oxygen or disease could be the reason for the death of these fish. However, the exact cause could be ascertained only after we finish our probe,” he said.

He said that ideally, the oxygen level in water should be five milligrams per litre or more for the survival of fish.

If it declines below three milligrams per litre, fish die, he said. Chaudhary said there are around 300 fish cages in the Maheshpur area, adjacent to the incident site and about one and half tonne of fish are being reared there but all of them are safe.

Road caves in

Three women were sucked into a crater following land subsidence in a colliery area of Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on Sunday, police said.

The incident happened at an outsourcing project site in Gondudih colliery, around 190km from Ranchi, in the command area of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), police added.

The women were reportedly walking on a makeshift road, built for coal transportation when a portion of it suddenly caved in, they said.

Dhanbad superintendent of police (rural) Kapil Chaudhary said: “Three women are trapped in a deep crater after a portion of land caved in. Rescue operations are on but they could not be traced yet.”