The green seas of China
The shores of many places along China's Yellow Sea are green as algae growth has spread over an area of almost 30,000 square kilometres.
The shores of many places along China's Yellow Sea are green as algae growth has spread over an area of almost 30,000 square kilometres.
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A view shows an algae covered public beach in Qingdao, northeast China's Shandong province on July 4, 2013. AFP
China hit by largest-ever algae growth
BEIJING: The seas off China have been hit by their largest ever growth of algae, ocean officials said, with vast waves of green growth washing onto the shores of the Yellow Sea.
Pictures showed beachgoers swimming and playing in the green tide in the eastern city of Qingdao, while bulldozers shovelled up tonnes of algae from the sand.
A Chinese man lies on the algae covered public beach in Qingdao. AFP
The State Oceanic Administration said on its website that the algae, enteromorpha prolifera, started to appear a week ago and had spread across an area of 28,900 square kilometres.
The previous largest growth was in 2008 when it affected around 13,000 square kilometres, it said.
Qingdao officials said they had removed around 7,335 tonnes of algae, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Chinese beachgoers walk by an algae covered public beach yesterday in Qingdao. AFP
The algal phenomenon is usually caused by an abundance of nutrients in the water, especially phosphorus, although the triggers for the enormous blooms which began to appear in the Yellow Sea in 2007 remain uncertain.
The China Daily quoted professor Bao Xianwen, of the Qingdao-based Ocean University of China, as saying: “It must have something to do with the change in the environment, but we are not scientifically sure about the reasons.”
The algae are not toxic nor detrimental to water quality, but lead to extreme imbalances in marine ecosystems by consuming large quantities of oxygen and creating hydrogen sulphide. AFP