A red tide has hit the coast of Xiamen, a major city in
southeast China's Fujian Province, leaving masses of oysters and
fish dead and the seas brown and smelly.
The city's first winter red tide in ten years covers more than
ten square kilometers, but is expected disappear in three to four
days, according to a report in Tuesday's Southeast Express
newspaper.
The local marine authority said the red tide was not caused by
poisonous algae, and would not affect local people because there
were no marine farms in the area.
The Xiamen government did not give safety warnings about eating
seafood, but said local residents were advised against swimming in
the water.
The red tide was caused by increasing temperature and recent
projects to clear seabed sludge, which may have stirred up
fertilizer residues in the seabed and given rise to algal blooms,
the newspaper quoted marine experts as saying.
The local government was installing facilities to help dissipate
the algae and closely monitoring the waters, the newspaper
said.
Red tides occur when pollutants such as raw sewage and
fertilizers cause algae to bloom, sapping the water of oxygen and
endangering marine life.
Large red tides have become an annual occurrence in waters off
China's coastal regions, including eastern China's Zhejiang
province, where the Yangtze River flows into the sea, and farther
north in the Bohai Sea near the Yellow River estuary.
China reported 93 red tides in 2006, an increase of 13 percent
over the previous year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2007)
