300 complaints in France after toxic algae kills horse

The prosecutor's office is studying up to 300 complaints linked to noxious green algae after the death of a horse this summer on a beach in Brittany, a judicial official said Friday.

Suspicions that tons of decaying green algae may be behind illnesses, comas or deaths reported over more than a decade gained credence with the death on July 28 of the thoroughbred on a beach in Saint-Michel-en-Greve. The rider, who was walking the horse, passed out.

Former Environment Minister and lawyer Corinne Lepage filed a complaint after the incident. Now, the prosecutor's office has received legal complaints from some 300 people, said a judicial official. The official was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue and asked for anonymity.

The prosecutor's office will order judicial, scientific and technical studies before deciding whether to send the cases to court.

Hydrogen sulfide - fatal in high quantities - can be released from algae putrefying on sun-drenched beaches.

A report by the INERIS research organization, which studies industrial and environmental risks, showed that concentrations of hydrogen sulfide on the Saint-Michel-en-Greves beach ranged up to 1,000 parts per million - an amount that "can be fatal in several minutes."