Recently, China’s Yellow Sea has been clogged for a surface of nearly 7,700 square miles (20,000 square kilometers) by a massive algae front.

Photo by GreenPeace China (not from the site).

Surprisingly enough, the algae spanning across great distances off the eastern provinces of Shandong and Jiangsu is a year to year visit, although authorities believe this year has been a bit more busy than previous ones, the Global Times said, citing a spokesman for the North China Sea Branch of the State Oceanic Administration.

The so-called “green tide” is a genuine oxygen sucker – typically caused by pollution in China, the algae suck up huge amounts of oxygen needed by marine wildlife to survive, while leaving a foul stench when they wash up on beaches. The current algae covering Chinese coasts is a marine plankton known as Enteromorpha prolifera. Like I said, this is a regular sight in the region, and last year alone more than a thousand dry-weight tons of algae was cleaned up, the Qingdao city government has said.

The resident aren’t minding this too hard, as children were even playing in the newly formed algae fields.