Pungent toxic clouds seen floating through city streets

What appeared to be clouds descending from the sky and touching the ground are anything but. And experts say the weather is partially to blame.

To the naked eye, it may appear like mounds of snow have piled up in portions of Colombia, South America, in recent days. However, it turns out the substance is much more harmful, and foul-smelling, than that.

Noxious foam has accumulated along the shorelines of contaminated rivers in Mosquera, located just outside the Colombian capital of Bogotá, occasionally drifting through the streets in cloudlike chunks as it gets picked up by the wind.

"We've had this problem for many years," local resident Flor Alba Rodriguez told AFP as the foam lay piled in the background.

"The smell is terrible, we have had to put up with the smell for a long time, and now with this big foam we are afraid that we will be in danger, God forbid someone falls in there, we won't be able to find them," another resident told the news agency.

Experts say the foam is formed as sewage and household detergents mix within areas of turbulent water, which may be caused by a narrowing of a river or an object jutting out of the water such as a bridge. Runoff from rain can also exacerbate the problem.

Weather observations show that just under 1 inch (25 mm) of rain was recorded in Bogotá on Wednesday, April 27, around the time that pictures and videos surfaced of the foam billowing across the region.

"I'm sure there were locally heavier amounts around there and upstream," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tony Zartman said, adding that weather observations in this part of the world are sparse.

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Mosquera Mayor Gian Gerometta said on Twitter that authorities are working to alleviate the problem by removing a plant in the river that causes the foam to collect and pile into large mounds.

Until the foam dissipates, officials are encouraging residents, especially children, to stay away from the piles and cloudlike fragments floating through the sky. Exposure to the foam is believed to cause respiratory problems and skin irritations.

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