“Fast-spreading, foul-smelling blue-green algae smothered a lake in eastern China, contaminating the drinking water for millions of people and sparking panic-buying of bottled water, state media said Thursday.

The algae bloom in Lake Tai, a famous but long-polluted tourist attraction in Jiangsu province, formed because water levels are at their lowest in 50 years, leading to excess nutrients in the water, Xinhua said.”

…

Drinking toxin-tainted water can cause vomiting, diarrhea, headache, muscle pain, paralysis, respiratory failure and, on rare occasions, even death. Pets and livestock are especially vulnerable.

The incident is the latest to hit China’s troubled waterways, which are dangerously polluted after decades of rapid economic growth and the widespread flouting of environmental regulations. Millions of people lacking access to clean drinking water.

In 2005, an accident caused a Chinese chemical plant to spew tons of toxic nitrobenzene and other chemicals into the north China’s Songhua River, forcing authorities to cut water to millions of residents.(via)

It’s no secret that China is suffering some serious environmental consequences of there “no rules’ growth policy. This is just one of many horrible things that is going to happen to them as they continue to rape pillage and destroy the land and water around them. You, me, and everyone else that buys all that cheap crap from china are also to blame. We can only hope that either the people of this nation, or the people of china will get sick of this sort of thing happening and do something about it.

I guess we could wait until people start dropping dead in the hundreds of thousands, and giant clouds of pollution start to drift over california someone might do something. It’s a serious problem that demands a serious solution.

So what exactly does it look like when a 5 million people panic and start buying every bottle of water in site?