Red Tide Off Shenzhen Largest In City's History - 19 Square Miles In Extent - Reuters

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Coastal waters off China's booming southern port of Shenzhen have been hit by the biggest ever marine algal bloom, state media reported on Thursday.

The report comes days after green algae in China's third largest lake cut off water supplies to millions of residents in Wuxi, in eastern Jiangsu province.

Commonly known as "red tide," toxic algal blooms can devastate marine plant and animal life and are exacerbated by coastal run-off from fertilizers and untreated human waste. "This is the biggest red tide that has ever appeared off the city's coast," the China Daily quoted Zhou Kai, an expert with the local marine environment monitoring station, as saying.

Zhou said the 50-sq-km (19-sq-mile) slick off the west coast of Shenzhen, a major industrial centre bordering Hong Kong in Guangdong province, was the third outbreak this year and was likely to persist without rain.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSPEK15653420070607?feedType=RSS