The Citarum River in Java is infamous for being one of the most polluted waterways in the world. The Indonesian government is trying to turn the state of the Citarum around through an ambitious clean-up project and a military-organized fishing contest on the river on Sunday aimed to show their progress, but it instead showed that authorities have a lot more than trash to clean out of the Citarum.
Authorities said around 72,000 fisherman came out for the “Gebyar Mancing Mania” fishing contest, centered around the Cilampeni Bridge in Margahayu, Bandung. The military had stocked the river with fish, offered IDR200 million (US$14,000) in prizes and invited all-comers to enter the fishing derby for free.
One participant, identified as a man named Safari (yes, seriously), probably thought he had a good shot at one of those prizes when he hooked onto something heavy in the river. But soon he made a gruesome discovery which was captured on video:
“When the witness was fishing, his hook hooked onto the corpse, he thought it was a heavy fish but it was a dead body,” Bandung Police Chief Indra Hermawan told Merdeka yesterday.
Military and police personnel immediately moved to remove and examine the corpse that had literally just been fished out of the river. It was taken to nearby hospital for an autopsy. Police said no signs of violence were found on the body, estimated to be that of a 20-30 year old man. They are asking the public for help in identifying the body.
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