Millions of sardines washed up on a beach on an island in the Philippines, turning coastlines silver as tiny fish, some dead and others leaping out of the water, covered the shore. While this may have looked like a gift from god for the local residents, less than 48 hours later, the area was struck by a powerful earthquake, sparking speculation that the fish may have sensed the impending natural disaster and fled into shallow waters.
Local experts do not agree with that connection, calling it a mere coincidence and instead maintain that a phenomenon known as “upwelling” was likely to blame for the unusual mass stranding.
The disorientated fish began to swim ashore in the early hours of Sunday (Jan. 7) on the coastline surrounding the municipality of Maasim, located in the Sarangani province on the southern tip of Mindanao island. Photos and videos captured by residents throughout the night show vast schools of glittering sardines scattered across the beach and thrashing in the surf as they were swept onto the shore.
The bounty was irresistible to locals who gathered to collect the dead fish. On one beach, more than 100 people each scooped up between 44 and 66 pounds (20 and 30 kilograms) of sardines each, while one family bagged more than half a ton of the tiny fish, Thai news site The Nation reported. The dead fish will either be eaten, stored for future use after preservation, or sold. Likely, nothing will go to waste.
Some locals believe that the unusual phenomenon is a “gift from god” and see it as a sign that the new year will be unusually prosperous, according to The Nation. But others warned that the mass stranding was an omen of natural disaster, Thai news site The Thaiger reported.
At around 5 a.m. local time on Tuesday (Jan. 9), a magnitude-6.7 earthquake struck in the Celebes Sea, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was around 62 miles (100 kilometers) offshore from Maasim, which fueled speculation on social media that the fish had somehow sensed the impending quake.
Cirilo Aquadera Lagnason Jr, a researcher at the Protected Area Management Office (PAMO) of Sarangani Bay who witnessed the sardine beaching firsthand, said that it’s unlikely that the two natural phenomena are connected. Instead, he believes that the most likely cause was an oceanographic phenomenon known as upwelling, in which nutrients from the deep sea rise to shallow coastal waters, triggering blooms of plankton.
The earthquake happening so soon after the stranding event is likely just a coincidence, Lagnason Jr. said. Earthquakes like this happen all the time in the “Ring of Fire” — a region of high tectonic activity that stretches around most of the Pacific Ocean, including the Philippines, he added.
Science offers no conclusive evidence that animals sense impending earthquakes.
