Near the Arctic Circle, Daldykan river in Russia has turned blood red! The locals are blaming a nickel factory in the vicinity for the environmental disaster.
The issue first surfaced when images of the river Daldykan appeared on VKontakte, the Russian version of Instagram. The river near the Norilsk city in Russia is a mass of flowing, vibrant red fluid.
The natives have blamed the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant for the red coloured river. The plant is a nickel processing facility belonging to one of the most influential metal companies in the region, the Norilsk Nikel.
A few residents claim that the red coloured Daldykan river is the result of polluted discharge from the factory. Others allege that the mixture of mineral ore and wastewater leakage has turned the blue water red.
The metal processing facility has denied the reports of leakage. The company asserted that the area is being monitored closely via helicopters to ascertain the cause of this environmental disaster.
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The company went as far as publishing an image of the river under normal conditions and declared:
“As far as we know, the colour of the river today is not different from its normal state.”
Norilsk is regarded as the world’s most polluted place, housing the largest heavy metals smelting plant in the world. An estimate shows that around four million tonnes of lead, copper, nickel, cadmium, zinc, and arsenic are annually released into the Norilsk air.