As if it were a biblical passage, this Saturday dozens of people from a community in Indonesia saw the streets flooded with blood-colored water.
The strange event took place in Jenggot, a city that is part of the city of Pekalongan in the province of Central Java.
Many people, unable to immediately verify the origin of the crimson color, began speculating about the reason for the phenomenon with superstitious theories even claiming it was the heralding of the end of the world.
Pekalongan, sin embargo, is a city known for its manufacturing via a traditional Indonesian method called ‘batik’ which had been used to set water-based dyes to render patterns and drawings, usually on fabric.
The reason for the color was due to a filtration of ‘batik’ into the water flow that traverses the city from a factory.
The work of textile mills in that part of the world means that rivers are often painted in different colors, just like in Jengoot. Only in January the water comes from another community in the same city of Pekalongan was colored light green.
Julid area, a Twitter user and a resident of the area, reported that “there are sometimes purple puddles on the road too.”
Before the appearance of the red waters, dozens of social network users published a good number of photos and videos.
Pekalongan Disaster Relief Chief Dimas Arga Yudha confirmed that the photos circulating were real.
“The red tide is due to the batik dye hit by the flood. It will disappear if it mixes with the rain after a while,” he said.
