China: The Yellow River changes color because of pollution

One kilometer of the Yellow River - China's second longest river - has turned red for the second time in a month due to pollution.

People in Lanzhou City, the capital of Gansu Province (northwestern China) reported the incident to the local environmental authority. They said the river had changed color and smelled bad at noon and lasted more than an hour.

After sampling the analytical water, environmental officials discovered in the water that there were dyes but not toxic.

The Beijing News newspaper quoted a Lanzhou city environmental protection official as saying that discolored river water "is very likely" due to waste coming from a hot water plant for the city's buildings. The official said that it may have added a dye to his water source to prevent people from stealing water from pipes.

(Photo: TTO)

According to a report released yesterday by the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency, the Yellow River has been slightly polluted, while its branches are heavily polluted.

At the end of last October, a section of the Yellow River had also been discolored and smelled, because the sewage into the river had a strange substance.

Considered the cradle of Chinese civilization in the dawn, the Yellow River flows into the Bohai Sea in Shandong Province (eastern China), 5,464 km from the watershed in the Tibetan Plateau. The river supplies more than 155 million people and 15% of China's agricultural land.

This is the second time the Yellow River water has turned red (Photo: TTO).

WALL VY