Hundreds of villagers flocked to the Marang beach yesterday evening to collect thousands of cockles that were washed up along the beach.

Describing it as an extraordinary phenomenon, the villagers were seen to have used their bare hands and nets to collect the cockles since 2pm.

A villager, Abdullah Ali, 49, said he believed that the cockles, which could normally be found in river estuaries, mudflats and intertidal beaches, were washed up on the shore by floods.

“We are so surprised to see thousands of cockles along the beach, which probably came from river estuaries in Kuala Ibai and Marang town,” he told reporters in Marang.

Meanwhile, Terengganu Malaysian Fisheries Development Board director Mohd Zaid Mohd Nor, when contacted, confirmed receiving report on the beach phenomenon.

- Bernama