A sewage leakage from a copper mine has contaminated a local river in southeast China's Fujian Province, causing mass deaths of fish, environmental authorities confirmed on Monday.

An initial investigation has found the leakage was from a plant of the Zijinshan Copper Mine, a copper hydrometallurgical segment of the Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group Co., China's largest gold producer headquartered in Shanghang County.

The provincial government has sent a work group to investigate the pollution. About 1.89 million kg of fish in a reservoir on the river were dead or poisoned after the contamination.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2010)