Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

Seehund “Bruno” looks out of his transport box before making his way to the water on the beach of the island of Juist, Germany on August 14, 2013. Four young seals were released after six weeks of recovery at a rescue station in Norden-Norddeich. (Photo by Carmen Jaspersen/AFP Photo/DPA)

“The Blitz (from German, “Lightning”) was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, half of them in London”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A fireman attempts to check the flames from a gas explosion, after an air raid in Central London the previous night. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 1940

7 year old Soni has a basket of coal lifted onto her head by her mother, 28 year old Savita, after having scavenged coal illegally from an open-cast coal mine in the village of Bokapahari on February 08, 2012 near to Jharia, India. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images)

A Puffin jumps into its burrow with a mouthful of sea eels to feed its chick on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire in Wales, Britain June 21, 2016. (Photo by Rebecca Naden/Reuters)

Visitors run away as waves caused by a tidal bore surge past a barrier on the banks of Qiantang River, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province August 13, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

This picture taken on September 3, 2014 shows a man taking pictures of floodwater released from the Three Gorges Dam, a gigantic hydropower project on the Yangtze river, in Yichang, central China's Hubei province, after heavy downpours in the upper reaches of the dam caused the highest flood peak of the year. Eleven people died and 27 others are missing after torrential rains battered southwest China's Chongqing, a municipality in the upper reaches of the Three Gorges Dam, causing thousands of houses to collapse, state media said. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Visitors look on as a man (front) inserts two live snakes through his nose and mouth during a performance at an amusement park to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 7-day national day holiday, in Jinhua, Zhejiang province October 1, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)