Grieg Seafood, an international seafood company, spilled roughly 4,000 gallons of chlorine into a fjord in northern Norway, killing nearly 96,000 fish.
The company, which annually exports over 25,000 tons of salmon to North America and Asia, stated that no employees or other civilians were hurt.
The leak happened at one of the company's fish slaughterhouses in the town of Alta, according to Roger Pedersen, and the fish were in a waiting cage nearby at the time.
"This is very sad," Stine Torheim, manager of Grieg's harvesting plant in Alta, Norway, said in a statement. "Our focus is now first and foremost on cleaning up. We will get all facts about this incident on the table to ensure that it will not happen again."
Northern Norway police said on Twitter that "significant quantities of salmon are dead" and that the leaking liquid had gone into the Atlantic Ocean.
After slaughtering, chlorine is used to disinfect the water, which is a common practice in Norway. The chemical ingredient is swiftly diluted and dissolved in water, according to the company.
Grieg Seafood will be in charge of the harvesting pens cleanup, which would take several days, the company said. The dead fish, which the company claims are insured, will be handled by the plant's silage system and boats, which are constantly monitored.
A report by NRK said police spokesman Stein Hugo Joergensen stated that no harmful chlorine gas was detected on land. The exact cause of the leak is still being investigated.
Alta is located 175 kilometers (109 miles) northeast of Tromsoe, which is Arctic Norway's largest city.
Grieg Seafood prides itself on being one of the world's premier salmon producers. It owns farms in Norway, Canada, and the Shetland Islands of the U.K.
The company released a statement about the incident, saying they don't yet have a complete picture of the leak's environmental impacts. It said an independent environmental evaluation will be conducted by a company affiliated with the Norwegian Institute for Water Research and will take "a few days."
