> China's Olympic Dream is becoming Real Green Nightmare - - China’s algae spread to resorts
>
> -- Who would have foreseen that the green algae will turn into China's Olympic nightmares !  :-) :-)
> The Olympics game hosted on 1989's killing fields surely attracted it's deserved namesis.  --
>
> China’s algae spread to resorts
>
> By Geoff Dyer in Baishatan, Shandong
>
> Published: July 11 2008 22:30 | Last updated: July 11 2008 22:30
>
> The algae outbreak that threatened the Olympic sailing competition in Qingdao has spread hundreds of
> kilometres up the coast to popular tourist areas, even as Chinese officials on Friday claimed
> near-victory over the thick green sludge.
>
> The long stretch of beach at Baishatan, 150km north of Qingdao, has been lined in recent days with
> 10-metre-wide slicks of algae that gave out a noxious odour to the few tourists who braved the sand,
> causing panic among tourist operators.
>
> Xu Xin, who has a stall selling seashells near the beach at Baishatan, said that the boardwalk would
> usually be packed at this time of year. “But look at it now, there is almost no one here,” she said.
> In front of her stall, two large earth-moving machines were scooping up chunks of the green algae
> that covered most of the beach. “They have cleaned the beach twice already, but it keeps coming back.”
>
> “We are just coming into the summer holiday period,” said Ms Li, duty manager at the Jinxiang Villa
> Hotel, near Baishatan, who declined to give her full name. “If this continues for much longer then
> we will have big problems over the summer.”
>
> The algae outbreak first appeared in Qingdao, the Shandong port city that is hosting the Olympic
> sailing competition next month. With many of the athletes already in the city to begin preparations,
> the city government has been working flat out to clear the algae from the competition area, calling
> in thousands of volunteers and soldiers and using hundreds of boats.
>
> Officials said on Friday that only 1.37 per cent of the area was now covered in algae – they have
> pledged to clear it by July 15 – and a 32km-long net will keep out new outbreaks.
>
> Just as the algae problem appears to be worsening, Xinhua news agency said this week pest-killers
> were trying to prevent a plague of locusts in Inner Mongolia from descending on Beijing – adding to
> the sense of near-biblical woes afflicting China.
>
> State media have quoted a number of scientists playing down the health risks from the algae, which
> they said was a natural phenomenon.
>
> Zhou Mingjiang, a researcher at the Institute of Oceanology in Beijing, said the algae in the sea
> was very different from the toxic blue-green algae that appeared in Taihu Lake in eastern China last
> year and forced the city of Wuxi to shut its water supply.
>
> But, some environmental activists said the size of the algae outbreak was due to pollution from
> industry and fish farms.
>
> “The natural ecosystem of the ocean has been destroyed, which is why strange events such as this can
> happen,” said Wen Bo, co-ordinator of Save China’s Seas Network.
>
> ARSENIC FEARS
>
> Burma’s cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta and Indonesia’s Sumatra island face high risks of arsenic
> contamination in ground water that could cause cancer and other diseases in residents, according to
> a study released on Friday, reports AP from Bangkok.
>
> Using a digitalised model that examines geological features and soil chemistry in south-east Asia,
> researchers writing in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience mapped several likely hot spots
> that had never been assessed for arsenic risks.
>
> Arsenic, especially in drinking water, is a global threat to health, affecting more than 70
> countries and 137m people.
>
> The country worst affected is Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of
> dying from cancers of the lung, bladder and skin.
>
> Odourless and tasteless, arsenic enters water supplies from natural deposits in the ground or from
> agricultural and industrial practices
>
> Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008