PHOTOS: Wenzhou river runs blood-red

This morning the residents of Xinmeizhou village, Cangnan county in Wenzhou awoke to find that their local river had turned blood-red overnight.

According to a local resident, the river was normal around 4:00-5:00am, but by 6:00am it just kept getting redder and redder.

Industrial pollution was the usual suspect, but people say there's no chemical plant anywhere near the river.

Locals also say that nothing like this has ever been seen before in the village.

"Human existence is a disaster for the planet," mused one netizen, "Chinese are just the worst offenders."

Another explanation suggests that this could be a Old Testament-style plague visited upon Wenzhou for the local government's alleged campaign against the municipality's many Christians, just as when God turned the Nile waters into blood to persuade the Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery.