China’s sky turning blood red: Here’s the reason behind rare phenomenon that sent panic waves among locals

New Delhi: The citizens of China’s Zhoushan city witnessed a mysterious blood-red sky over the weekend which sent panic waves among them. Several videos are going around the social media which show the port city having a crimson colour sky along with thick layers of fog. Besides, reports suggest that the sky was reddest towards the port areas.

According to Global Times, people noticed skies turning crimson red from their houses, balconies, and streets. The videos and photos of the phenomenon went viral with over 150 million views on Chinese social media platforms like Sina and Weibo. Many users regarded the phenomenon as a bad omen with the Chinese government’s handling of the Covid-19 in the country.

“I have never seen anything like this before. It really amazes me that the sky can even turn red,” Global Times quoted a user.

Blood red sky in Zhoushan舟山, China, on the evening of May 7th, a result of Rayleigh Scattering? pic.twitter.com/iGlrtN5VTq

— Tong Bingxue 仝冰雪 (@tongbingxue) May 8, 2022

With the sky turning red and videos and images going viral on social media, people of the city started panicking. However, television and media outlets explained that the blood-red colour of the sky is due to natural light refraction and not any manmade effect. Reportedly, the Zhoushan Meteorological Bureau explained, “When weather conditions are good, more water in the atmosphere forms aerosols which refract and scatter the light of fishing boats and create the red sky seen by the public.”

The city’s local media reported that the crimson red sky might have been due to the refraction of the red light coming from a fishing boat harvesting Pacific saury.

Moreover, people compared the phenomenon to a 1770 incident where the sky turned red for nine days owing to major solar activity by Japanese scientists in a 2017 research article, an expert from the space physics research team of the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan told the media that no anomaly in solar activity was observed and the two events were independent of each other.