Experts have no explanation for why so many fish perished on the beach
© CEN / ecosakh.ruExperts have no explanation for why so many fish perished on the beach
Almost 100 tonnes of dead fish washed up on a deserted Pacific island leaving experts scratching their heads.

Incredible pictures show hundreds of thousands of herring covering a 440-metre stretch of Piltun Bay, on Russia's Sakhalin Island, north of Japan.

And baffled ecologists so far have no answers as to what could have triggered the so-called "herring genocide".

Dead fish at Piltun Bay
© CEN / ecosakh.ruDead fish at Piltun Bay
A spokesman for the regional NGO Ecological Watch of Sakhalin said: "The death scale of the Pacific herring in Piltun Bay is enormous.

"The death of such an amount of uneven-aged fish of the same species is an abnormal event, and it may be a question of the destruction of a large part of the population of the herring of the bay."

Fish samples have been sent to Russian capital Moscow for testing as an investigation is launched into what happened.

(Video of the fish kill available here)