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Here is the full article.

Indians drink "divine" sea water as it turns sweet (Reuters)

19 August 2006 


MUMBAI - Thousands of Indians drank from a murky Arabian Sea creek after
news spread overnight that its water had miraculously turned sweet and could
cure illnesses, police said on Saturday.


About 5,000 people gathered at the creek in India's biggest city of Mumbai
overnight, and many of them were seen drinking the dirty water with their
palms, they said.

"Sweet seawater, this is a miracle. This water is divine," Sheikh Naseer, a
Mumbai resident, told a local TV news channel.

He was also shown giving a young boy a bath in the creek's murky waters that
receive thousands of tonnes of sewage and industrial waste every day.

Some people carried seawater away in bottles and plastic bags, saying they
were going to share it with their families. Children as well as adults
bathed in the murky water in which garbage and plastic were seen floating.

Police said the news spread after some fishermen tasted the water and found
it sweet and told local residents about it.

"There has been a mad rush to the creek. There is a dargah nearby and people
felt this is something divine," said S. Kumar, a police officer, referring
to an Islamic mausoleum in the area.

But police stepped in and stopped people from going to the creek on Saturday
after authorities and doctors warned that the water could be polluted and
drinking it could be dangerous.

Mumbai's civic officials said the water could have temporarily lost its
salinity due to several reasons, including pollution and inflow of
freshwater from a nearby source.

"We have collected a sample of the water and sent it for testing," a city
official said, adding that the water in the creek had returned to being
saline.

Last year three people drowned in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai after thousands
of people made a dash for a beach where diamonds were rumoured to be washing
ashore.   

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