It was a scene right out of an ‘end of the world’ movie as the sky turned red under a thick layer of fog in the Chinese city of Zhoushan. A number of videos were posted by the citizens of the city and there was considerable panic among them as the phenomenon is not common in the region.
There was a lot of chatter on the social media as many users called it ‘beautiful’ while others went on to call it ‘apocalyptic’. There were also mentions of a Japanese study in 2017 which said that a number of countries experienced a red sky back in 1770 due to a huge solar activity.
Local reports said that refraction and scattering of light was the reason behind the mysterious red sky in Zhoushan, which is situated in China's Zhejiang Province and is quite close to Shanghai.
"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 staff of the meteorological bureau said according to reports from the local Chinese media.
The state-owned media CCTV also got in touch with a local fishing company who confirmed that the light belonged to one of their boats and refraction caused the thick cover of fog to turn red.
