Vavaʻu beach sea turns blood red sparking panic
The sight of a blood red sea sparked panic at Vavaʻu’s Neiafutahi beach in Tonga this week.
Villagers were in fear to find the sea had turned crimson and that it happened towards the end of the year 2014.
Some people believed this was a biblical sign the world would end soon or perhaps whales had been killed in the waters.
Filomena Hansen uploaded pictures of the event to Facebook and she simply commented. “OMG don’t tell me it’s the last dreadful day”.
She told Kaniva News the colour was first spotted on Sunday 29 but it was only widely known to villagers yesterday as the red blood sea increasingly spread in size.
We could not be able to obtain comments from Tonga’s Ministry of Natural Resources.
However, the episode is not new as it happened in the past in other countries of the world.
Neiafutahi sea turned red. It was first spotted on Sunday 29 December 2014 Picture: Filomena Hansen
On one occasion in 2012, some of Sydney’s most popular beaches were closed as the water turned blood red but the colour was caused by a bloom of algae.
When such event was caused by a bloom of algae people called it red tides but scientists prefer the term harmful algal bloom.
“It is caused by microscopic algae that produce toxins that kill fish and make shellfish dangerous to eat. The toxins may also make the surrounding air difficult to breathe…and often turns the water red”.
Meanwhile, there were reports of an underwater vent spotted at north of Nuku’alofa this morning which billowed steam of over 3000 metres high above sea level.
Before last Christmas, there were reports of large plume of ash erupted violently at Hunga volcano in Haʻapai.
