CRISISBOOM

truthdive

Chongqing, Sep 8 (TruthDive): Third world’s longest river Yangtze River has turned its color to reddish-orange in China. Officials are examining the river’s change, as they have no idea what caused the change.

The residents staying along the shores on the Yangtze River which is the largest river in China, called as Golden Watercourse, noticed the change this week as the water was not its normal hue as the water had changed to red.

The river is called “golden” as it receives heavy rain throughout the year and runs through China’s largest commercial and industrial center Chongqing.

Chongqing is called as mountain city as its many factories and buildings stand upon the hills. The officials have not yet determined the cause, but the environment officials attribute it to industrial pollution.

Some residents nearby have collected the strange coloured water from the river in bottles and saved it. Fishermen and workers who rely on this river for income however kept going about their business.

Emily Stanley, a professor of limnology in the University of Wisconsin explained that red colour could have developed because of color-producing microorganisms. Fresh water occasionally turns blood-red due to biological reasons during the drought season.

Last summer, a lake turned red in colour during a drought season in Texas. But this happens only when water has less oxygen than normal. But the rivers move constantly, rarely ever get oxygen deficiencies necessary for a life-based red dye job.

After reviewing few pictures of Chongqing’s red river, Stanley concludes the reason behind to be a man-made cause. She told that water bodies turned red very fast as people had dumped some dyes into them.

It is not the first time a Chinese river changed to red, another river Jian changed its colour last December as it was polluted by man-made dye which was illegally dumped in a factory. Officials forced the factory responsible to shut.