A river in Russia has turned the color of blood, something many locals blame on a leak at a nearby nickel plant.
A number of images shared across social media showed the waters of the Daldykan River near the Siberian city of Norilsk turning an alarming shade of crimson.
— ¶ ¬ T ¬ A (@PorteTonArme) 7 September 2016
Norilsk Nickel, which runs the nearby Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant denied that there was a leak, or even any change in the river.
“As far as we know, the color of the river is today no different from normal,” a company source told.
However, Norilsk Nickel said it would monitor the situation.
Norilsk Nickel uses pipes to pump chemical solutions and metal concentrates, Denis Koshevoi, a PhD candidate at the Vernadsky Institute for Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, told.
“Periodically there are accidents when these pipes break and the solutions spill and get into the Daldykan ― that’s why it changes color,” Koshevoi was quoted as saying.