Part of the longest river in China has turned a strange red color and nobody seems to know why.
Officials are conducting an investigation in to the phenomenon to determine whether the unusual red tint could have been caused by industrial dyes or pollutants being dumped in to the water. Recent floods may have also been a factor because they can churn up silt from the riverbed. Limonology professor Emily Stanley has weighed in to the debate by ruling out the possibility that the color is akin to a ‘red tide’ caused by microorganisms because this tends to only happen in the sea.
“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.”
