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QINGDAO, China: The clock that once counted down to the start of the Olympics in the centre of Qingdao, the sailing venue for next month's Games, now reads zero days, zero hours and zero seconds.
It is likely a malfunction but it underscores the pressure facing the team of 10,000 soldiers and volunteers racing to clean up a foul-smelling green algae covering a third of the sailing course.
The algae bloom has become an unexpected nightmare for Olympic organisers, disrupting international competitors' training and throwing an embarrassing global spotlight on the massive environmental problems in China.
And from the military to local teachers, people from the entire spectrum of Chinese society are doing their bit in Qingdao to ensure Olympic organisers' promise of staging a "Green Games" does not become an ironic joke.
At Zhangqiao Park in the city's west, residents and tourists waded into the foul water scooping up algae with shovels, rakes and their bare hands, creating piles of woolly green clumps on the beach as a smell comparable with rotting broccoli or cauliflower hung in the air.
Teacher Ai Fuhua stood on the beach with a rake in her hands, explaining that for her this was her Olympic moment.
"I wanted to be a volunteer during the events but I wasn't selected," she said. "I can just do a little for the country, for the Olympic Games."
As her nine-year-old son Wang Haolin dredged the sand with his rake, she said it was their first day on Thursday but they would return to help in their spare time until the job was done.
About one kilometre (half-a-mile) from where sailors were training, more than 1,000 soldiers cheered and listened to patriotic music on Friday as they used pitchforks to scoop the algae into heavy plastic bags.
Meanwhile, Wang Chenchun, 24, led a team of about a dozen algae-busting volunteers, complete with a flag bearer and T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the homeware store where they work.
He said his co-workers were inspired by the volunteers who helped relief efforts following last month's earthquake in southwest China and they wanted to help the Olympic effort.
Since the algae began appearing last week, more than 170,000 tonnes of it have been cleared, according to the city government which has vowed to have the problem fixed well before the sailing events begin in six weeks.
The algae bloom is a common occurrence in Qingdao, but lifetime resident Paul Liu, 46, said he had never seen anything like this year's, which appeared during a hot spell after weeks of heavy rain.
"But this is no problem, the government is very focused on this," Liu said.
The bloom and others like it on China's coasts are largely due to sewage and agricultural pollutant run-off, Tom Wang, a Beijing-based expert on water pollution with Greenpeace China, told AFP.
"Basically these algae blooms are due to farmers using too much fertilizer and cities failing to treat their sewage," Wang said.
More than 400 sailors from 60 countries are expected to compete in the Olympic sailing competition at Qingdao, which is about 550 kilometres (340 miles) southeast of Beijing.
Back in the capital, the skies were typically grey and heavy with pollution on Friday, despite what China has described as a years-long effort to improve the city's environment.
International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge has warned that endurance events, such as the marathon, may be postponed if the pollution is too severe during the August 8-24 Games.
- AFP/jk
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