A beach in Chile coloured red by thousands of dead prawns (Picure: Jose Luis Saavedra/Reuters)

Thousands of prawns have washed up ashore in Chile after local fishermen say power plants began using seawater for cooling.

Chilean officials say they are investigating the incident which left a beach covered by the red crustaceans.

The dead prawns appeared in Coronel, some 330 miles south of the capital, Santiago.

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Local fishermen said the Bocamina 1 and 2 plants owned by regional power generator Endesa, and the Santa Maria plant controlled by Chilean power company Colbun, have heated the waters, endangering their livelihood.


‘I’m 69 years old and started fishing when I was nine but, as a fisherman, I never saw a disaster of this magnitude,’ Gregorio Ortega told local Radio Bio Bio.



Hundreds of dead crabs also washed up in the same area over the weekend.

‘We’re going to be collecting as much evidence as possible to determine if this is an environmental crime,’ Ana Maria Aldana, prosecutor for environmental crimes, told state television.

Fishermen blame a local power plant using sea water as coolant for killing the prawns ([Picture: Jose Luis Saavedra/Reuters) An official at Colbun declined to comment while a spokesman for Endesa said the company was aware of the issue and would issue a statement later.

Chile’s energy intensive mining industry is clamouring for more power.

Some analysts say the country must triple its capacity in just 15 years, despite having no domestic oil or natural gas.

But while some blame pollution, others say the death of the prawns could be a result of the El Nino phenomenon, which warms the waters of the Pacific.

Recent years have seen an increase in dead sea creatures washing ashore (Picture:Jose Luis Saavedra/Reuters)

A large number of dead sea creatures have been washing up on South America’s Pacific coasts in recent years.

In February the bodies of dozens of animals, including sea turtles, sea lions, dolphins, sharks and marine birds, were washed up on a Peruvian coastline.

Environmental experts have said some of the possible explanations include viruses, offshore oil exploration, and poisoned food sources.