South China Morning Post published this video item, entitled “China’s luminous ‘blue tears’ are actually a tip-off to unhealthy oceans” – below is their description.
Glowing blue patches, also known as “blue tears”, have been lighting up waters off Pingtan Island in eastern China’s Fujian province. Drawing crowds of tourists, the natural phenomenon is actually caused by a tiny bioluminescent organism called dinoflagellates, a type of algae that glows when disturbed. Despite its beauty, the glistening sea is actually a sign of unhealthy waters. According to David Baker, an associate professor of biology at the University of Hong Kong, the algae blooms are harmful because they deprive other marine life of enough oxygen.
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In This Story: Hong Kong
Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR), is a metropolitan area and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. With over 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island at the end of the First Opium War in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As a special administrative region, Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems”.