Huangshan city mirage in a nutshell, just a winning combination of bad translation and sensationalist reporting. Huangshan City in Anhui Province, China was one city out of a number affected by the 2011 flooding in 12 or 13 provinces. By the 14th June 2011 the water had exceeded warning levels in reservoirs and inundated the city.
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| Click to Enlarge - Huangshan City |
Incredibly, video footage of the floods, as they claimed low lying areas of the city were broadcast and sensationalised by western media who misreported an all too literal translation of the interpretation describing the amazing wet and misty weather framing the scenery.
Perhaps ironically it is the 'Chinese Whispers' phenomenon at play here but the story became one of insanely amazing mirages, the clarity of which has never been seen before. It was circulated via news websites presumably in the same hurried fashion that does away with any cross checking of facts and the youtube videos went viral, along with the emergence of the inevitable conspiracy theories of hologram technology and otherworldy portals. In fact the truth is somewhat a little more mundane than the fiction, the 'floating' buildings suspended in mist above the river as described by the majority of news sites are actually nothing more than the buildings which are already currently in existence as seen THROUGH the fog, the 'floating' trees are explained by nothing more mysterious than the river having swollen and flooded low lying ground. For easy identification the coloured key and identifiable landmarks are marked for you with the corresponding slides from the video. Internet hype and misinformation sure spreads quickly in this day and age! |
| Video Frame 1 with yellow key identifiable landmarks |
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| Video Frame 2 with green key identifiable landmarks |
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| Magnified top view from google maps of the same green areas |
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| Video Frame 3 with blue key identifiable landmarks |
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