River turns blood RED overnight in mystery baffling entire Chinese city

Locals living next to the waterway in Wenzhou all their lives say it has never happened before and industrial contamination has been ruled out

A city woke up this morning to find its river running blood red... and no-one knows why.

Locals say at 4am the water flow was normal but by 6am it had turned a frightening shade of crimson.

An elderly resident who has lived by the river all his life says it has never happened before.

Industrial contamination has been ruled out because there are no chemical plants along it length.

Now environment protection officials in the Chinese city of Wenzhou are taking water samples to find out what is going on.

Wenzhou is a well-known town in East China's Zhejiang Province.

The place is surrounded by mountains on three sides with the front of the city facing the Pacific ocean.

The phenomenon echoes a similar incident in 2012 when the Yangtze River in China also changed colour.

Officials claimed the blood-red waters were a result of sand distribution due to upstream flooding but sceptics were not convinced and social media sites were full of bizarre theories including one that it was the start of The Apocalypse.

More pictures.