When salt water turns sweet

2006

Mumbai

The mysterious incident that left the world baffled, when the salty seawater of Mahim creek, Mumbai turned sweet in August 2006. Mere hours later it was reported that the seawater at Gujarat, Teethal beach had also turned sweet.

Due to the fact that no cause to this sudden change could be determined the Authorities urged people to stay out of the water and under no circumstances were the to consume it. The initial reason behind this phenomenon was thought to be an induction toxins into the water.

However the general populous in the area believed that this was in fact a blessing from Haji Maqdoom Baba’s (mostly due to the fact that this miracle was taking place at the shrine of Haji Maqdoom Baba.) and as such in stead of heading the warning, flocked in their thousands in order to drink the water and even collect the water in bottles, causing what could be seen as a mass hysteria.

There was a great concern that with all the people consuming the water that has not been declared as safe yet, could lead to a mass outbreak of an undeclared water-borne disease.

The craze that he people believed was caused by a divine intervention ended a mere seventeen hours later when the water turned back to its salty norm.

Geologists based at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay made a declaration at a later stage that the water turning sweet can be attributed to the fact that there was continuous rainfall over the preceding few days had caused the accumulation of a large pool of fresh water in an underground rock cavity that was situated near the coastline to form. the fractures in the rock enclosure started widening at some stage and this plume of water was then released into the ocean, and because of the density of the salt water and that of the fresh water differs vastly, the fresh water floated on top of the salt water until the diffusion process was completed, and the miracle was classified as a natural phenomenon.