Slaughterhouse Leak Turns Stream Red

A Swedish town that appeared to be undergoing some Biblical plagues recently has traced the problem to a local abattoir that sprung a leak and dumped blood into a nearby stream.

According to The Local, the slaughterhouse said the problem happened when a basin at the facility overflowed. The waste seeped out and turned an entire nearby stream a disturbing shade of red.

The head of the slaughterhouse said he thought it was only about 15 liters of blood that had leaked out, or "about as much blood as in a calf." That was enough to turn the entire stream crimson, though.

"That's enough to color 1,000 liters of water," the slaughterhouse head admitted.

After the red water called attention to the problem, tests revealed the stream had 10 times the legal limit of ammonia nitrogen, which can be poisonous to humans. The slaughterhouse is currently under investigation for environmental crimes, in part because it took the abattoir three days to report the leak. The head of the slaughterhouse said the delay could not be helped, as it happened over a holiday weekend and there were no authorities available to report the incident to.