Thousands battle algae bloom in Olympic sailing host city

QINGDAO, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of soldiers and volunteers in east China's coastal city of Qingdao, host of the Olympic sailing events, are still battling a major algae bloom on Friday. More than 1,200 vessels were at sea cleaning the foul-smelling algae, and inflatable barriers were placed near the coastline to prevent the algae from encroaching on the shore. According to an emergency headquarters set up to clean the algae, its coverage in the sailing competition areas, which span more than 50 square kilometers, had shrunk from 32 percent five days ago to less than 10 percent. More than 110,000 soldiers and volunteers have been engaged in frantic efforts to cleaning the weeds, which was first spotted at the end of May and started to bloom in mid-June. A municipal government figure published on Wednesday showed the... [read full story]