FT - Qingdao Algae Bloom Spreads From Sailing Venue Hundreds Of Kilometers Along Chinese Coast

[hatrack]

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

EDIT

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6de6450-4f76-11dd-b050-000077b07658.html

[XemaSab]

1. There's more than one way to host a "green Olympics"

:P

[mediaman007]

2. A fitting welcome to Bush*, when "the World's biggest polluter" attends

the 2008 Summer Olympics!

[hatrack]

3. It might even be a sort of cool comeuppance for the Simian Dauphin

As in, "You want 'world's biggest polluter'? Here, check out this smog! And how about this algae bloom? Huh? HUH?"

[izquierdista]

4. Poor copy editing

The headline should have been "Xu Xin xells xeaxells by the xeaxore" :rofl: :rofl:

Seriously, they should be collecting up the green goo and processing it into biofuels.