Some 30,000 gallons of slurry have seeped into a Co Mayo river after the walls of a slurry tank collapsed. The spill occurred about two miles from Knappaghbeg Lake, near Westport. A Western Regional Fisheries Board spokesman described the spill as the worst he had witnessed.
Fisheries and county council staff cleared the polluted stretch of river of more than 300 dead fish on Friday. There are fears that the slurry could wipe out the fish population in the lake and flow into a tributary feeding the Carrowbeg River, which runs through the centre of Westport.