Menidi, Greece, February 29, 2008—A man stands in front of a cage full of dead fish at a farm off the coast in the Gulf of Amvrakikos, about 217 miles (350 kilometers) northeast of Athens.

Around 800 tons of fish, including sea bass and sea bream, died from lack of oxygen, according to the AFP news agency.

"This is an unprecedented incident in Greece and probably in the whole Mediterranean basin," Sotiris Saxamis, deputy prefect of Aitolías Kai Akarnanias province, told AFP.

Local marine biologist Vangelis Dimitriou told the Reuters news agency that the fish may have died after swimming through a large pocket of water where the temperatures suddenly dropped, depriving the fish of oxygen.

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