SEAFOOD SPECIAL DELIVERY
Chinese city flooded with sea creatures, and Storm Emma’s fishy wake
A severe storm that swept through the coastal city of Qingdao in China’s Shandong Province on 13 June 2018 toppled trees and large signposts, flooded the streets and brought traffic to a standstill. More unusually, it caused a rain of sea creatures, if we are to credit these arresting images, posted on China’s microblogging platform Weibo, that look like a scene from a dark sci-fi movie – shrimp, molluscs and starfish, some stuck to windscreens, as well as a suspicious-looking falling octopus. According to the Qingdao Meteorological Administration, violent weather was recorded in the late afternoon of 13 June, including hail and hurricane-force winds blowing at a shocking 56km (34.8 miles) a second – registering a 12 on the Beaufort scale. The wind speeds set a new all-time record
The storm is believed to have caused waterspouts
for June. The storm is believed to have caused waterspouts in the Yellow Sea, the traditional explanation for lifting creatures out of water. (As far as we know, such phenomenal levitations have never actually been witnessed.) Local forecasters refused to confirm whether the photos were real; however, the octopus was soon revealed to be photoshopped, and a number of humorous fake images were circulated online in the wake of the storm appearing to show robots and monsters posing next to the damage.
After Storm Emma back in March, the UK saw its own sea life displaced onshore as masses of creatures, including starfish, crab, mussels and lobsters, were washed up on the coast following a drop in temperature caused by the storm. Tens of thousands of creatures were piled up in places along the North Sea coast, including Holderness coast in Yorkshire. Similar mass mortality was reported in Kent and Norfolk. dailymail.co.uk, odditycentral.com, 15 June; Unilad. co.uk, 16 June 2018.
Some recent fish falls: southern Ethiopia, May 2000; Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, Aug 2000; Netherhampton, Wiltshire, May 2001; Woollahra, nr Sydney, Sept 2003; Ocean Springs, Mississippi, July 2003; Northern Territory Australia, Feb 2010; Sri Lanka, May 2014; Oroville, northern California, May 2018 [ FT137:8, 139:6, 152:21, 180:8, 188:8, 262:24,
315:5.] Repeated falls of blind fish in Honduras [ FT357:10]. Tadpoles and fish fell all over Japan in June 2009 [ FT252:4-5]. Earthworms fell in Jennings, Louisiana, in July 2007 [ FT299:17] and across southern Norway in April 2014 [ FT328:22]. Rissoid snails fell on Flitsham, Norfolk, in Aug 2014 [ FT319:9]. Arctic lampreys fell on Fairbanks, Alaska, in June 2015 [ FT330:23].