Smells of rot and kills fish: the water in Singapore suddenly turned pink

The water that flows through Sentosa Bay in Singapore, unexpectedly turned an unusual pink color on January 12 this year. This very much scared the locals.

The first signs that the water is not all right, appeared on January 5. She began to smell very unpleasant, a sharp putrid smell emanated from her. In just a few days, the smell became unbearable. When the locals decided that it could not be worse, the water suddenly turned pink with a purple tinge of color. Because of this, fish began to die en masse in the bay.

The local government advised residents not to engage in water sports in this section of the river, so as not to harm their health. Special services are trying to determine the causes of such changes and understand what happened to the water.

If the situation does not change for the better in the near future, there is a great risk that a lot of fish will die in the river, and the pollution itself will spread beyond the bay.

Dr Sandrik Leong, a senior researcher at the Institute of Tropical Marine Sciences at the National University of Singapore, said the coloured water was caused by the blooming of picocyanobacteria (a type of algae).

Blooming occurs when large amounts of algae or cyanobacteria accumulate in the water due to the large amount of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen.

Dr Leong said heavy and incessant rain over the past couple of weeks may have contributed to the bloom:

"The characteristics of rapid adaptation of cyanobacteria to sudden changes in environmental conditions, such as recent continuous rains, allow cyanobacteria to displace other phytoplankton or algae. Because of the rain, lighting conditions were low, and cyanobacteria could grow better in low light."