Fish fell from the sky with light rain in northeast Mexico, according to civil defense officials.
Tamaulipas civil defense reported a ‘curious case’ of fish accompanying rain in the coastal city of Tampico.
‘Not to say there were a lot of fish — one here, one there,’ Pedro Granados, director of civil defense, told Info7 on Tuesday. ‘It has to be said, they’re very small fish, which weigh a few grams. It’s strange, not normal.’
Tamaulipas civil defense reported a ‘curious case’ of fish accompanying rain in a city in northeastern Mexico on Tuesday. They posted two photos of the fish on Facebook
The strange rain fell in the coastal city of Tampico in northeastern Mexico which is surrounded by lagoons near the Caribbean Sea
The civil defense agency in Tamaulipas posted a photo of four small fish in a bag and a photo of one on a sidewalk.
A blurry video posted on YouTube shows a few of the tiny fish on the sidewalk.
The rare meteorological phenomenon is believed to occur after tornadoes over water – called waterspouts- suck fish into the air where they are blown around until being released to the ground.
Because the city of Tampico is surrounded by lagoons, officials said this event is not entirely surprising.
The phenomenon has been reported since ancient times, also involving other flightless animals like toads and frogs.
In May of this year, Oroville, a city in northern California experienced rains with dozens of carp.
Granados commented that this strange occurrence is hardly surprising given the month Mexico has had.
‘I don’t know if it’s climate change,’ Granados said, ‘but we’ve had tornadoes, storms, rains, floods, raining fish, eclipses, earthquakes, all kinds of natural phenomena that we aren’t used to, but that we are experiencing these days.’
Mexico suffered a 7.1 magnitude earthquake last week that killed at least 300 people.