Chinese River Mysteriously Turns Bloody Red Overnight [PICTURED]
A river in eastern China turned blood red overnight and investigators aren’t completely sure why.
Residents living in Wenzhou, a commercial city in the Zhejiang Province, saw the river change to crimson Thursday morning, China Radio International reports. People told CRI the river was flowing normally at 4 a.m. but rapidly turned a scary shade of red at about 6 a.m. A villager who has lived there his entire life said he’d never seen the river turn red before.
ABC News reported that residents also experienced a strange smell in the air as the river changed color.
Residents in Zhejiang province said the river looked normal at 5 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday morning. Within an hour, the entire river turned crimson. Residents also said a strange smell wafted through the air.
“The really weird thing is that we have been able to catch fish because the water is normally so clear,” one local villager commented on China’s microblogging site Weibo.
After investigating the incident, the Wenzhou Environmental Protection Bureau told Voice of America that they were unable to figure out the cause of the river’s change in hue. Investigators said they didn’t find anything suspicious coming from the factories along the river.
One theory from the bureau was that someone dumped artificial coloring in the water, believing heavy rains from Typhoon Matmo would wash away the red dye, China News reported. But the Typhoon did not dump heavy rain on the area as some expected, so the river became “bloodied,” according to that theory.
Xiao said there is a paper manufacturer, a food coloring company and clothing-maker a long the river. The bureau is still investigating the incident.
This is the third time in three years a river in China has turned red, Mashable reports. The website adds that the Yangtze River in Chongqing turned a lighter shade of red in 2012, and in 2011, the Jian River in Henan Province turned dark red.
Although investigators haven’t pinpointed what happened Thursday in Wenzhou, experts are offering possible explanations for previous cases. After the 2012 incident, the University of Wisconsin’s Emily Stanley, professor of limnology — which is the study of inland waters — told LiveScience.com the sudden change of a river’s color is likely man-made.
“It looks like a pollutant phenomenon,” she said. “Water bodies that have turned red very fast in the past have happened because people have dumped dyes into them.
Residents living in Wenzhou, a commercial city in the Zhejiang Province, saw the river change to crimson Thursday morning, China Radio International reports. People told CRI the river was flowing normally at 4 a.m. but rapidly turned a scary shade of red at about 6 a.m. A villager who has lived there his entire life said he’d never seen the river turn red before.
ABC News reported that residents also experienced a strange smell in the air as the river changed color.
Residents in Zhejiang province said the river looked normal at 5 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday morning. Within an hour, the entire river turned crimson. Residents also said a strange smell wafted through the air.
“The really weird thing is that we have been able to catch fish because the water is normally so clear,” one local villager commented on China’s microblogging site Weibo.
After investigating the incident, the Wenzhou Environmental Protection Bureau told Voice of America that they were unable to figure out the cause of the river’s change in hue. Investigators said they didn’t find anything suspicious coming from the factories along the river.
One theory from the bureau was that someone dumped artificial coloring in the water, believing heavy rains from Typhoon Matmo would wash away the red dye, China News reported. But the Typhoon did not dump heavy rain on the area as some expected, so the river became “bloodied,” according to that theory.
Xiao said there is a paper manufacturer, a food coloring company and clothing-maker a long the river. The bureau is still investigating the incident.
This is the third time in three years a river in China has turned red, Mashable reports. The website adds that the Yangtze River in Chongqing turned a lighter shade of red in 2012, and in 2011, the Jian River in Henan Province turned dark red.
Although investigators haven’t pinpointed what happened Thursday in Wenzhou, experts are offering possible explanations for previous cases. After the 2012 incident, the University of Wisconsin’s Emily Stanley, professor of limnology — which is the study of inland waters — told LiveScience.com the sudden change of a river’s color is likely man-made.
“It looks like a pollutant phenomenon,” she said. “Water bodies that have turned red very fast in the past have happened because people have dumped dyes into them.
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