In 2008, swimmers in the Chinese city of Qingdao were in for a surprise when they visited the beach. The sea had turned into a green mass of slimy tentacle squash, like something out of one of Lovecraft's discarded story ideas. Well, not the whole sea -- just a coastal area the size of, oh, 5,000 square miles or so. The city was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of one of the biggest algae blooms in history, thanks to a shitload of chemicals dumped off the coast.
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"Now that the algae ate the chemicals, the water's safe for swimming, right?"
Yes, just as in all of those giant monster movies from the 1950s, it turns out that this super-sized mutant horror was due to mankind's hubris. The naturally occurring algae in the river had been driven into frenzy by heavy agricultural runoff, leading to a vast algal explosion that covered entire coastal areas with piles and piles of the stuff, running almost 10 feet thick in places. This was a bummer, as the algae ate up all the oxygen in the water, which kills off the fish. Also, the Olympics were just around the corner, and Qingdao was supposed to host the sailing events.
Somehow, they managed to clean up the area in time, and Qingdao was finally able to forget this nightmare ... for now.
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"Why is it screaming?"
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