MOL
Beijing
Villagers in China were left baffled when they woke up and discovered their river had turned blood red.
Witnesses in Xinmeizhou village, Zhejiang province, said the river was running normally at 5am but within just a few minutes it began turning a deep shade of crimson. Some filled clear plastic bottles with the liquid and reported it had a strange smell. Resident Na Wan said: ‘The really weird thing is that we have always been able to catch fish and you can even drink the water because it’s just normally so good.
‘Nobody has any idea how it could have ended up being polluted because there are no factories that dump anything in the water here.’ However, environmental experts took samples from the river, which reportedly has a food colouring plant on its banks. One said: ‘We suspect that maybe somebody drove here to dump stuff. We are looking further upstream to try and find out where the source was of this pollution.’