A tourist beach on the Costa del Sol was forced to raise a yellow flag today after a mysterious brown stain began to grow from the shoreline.
The phenomenon, it soon emerged, was being caused by a burst water pipe next to the Los Patos Hotel in Benalmadena.
Videos shared online showed a huge flow of water gushing out of the major pipe, which serves half of the town’s population.
There were fears that the water was in fact sewage due to its brown colour.
However, local government sources insisted to the EFE news agency that the liquid was in fact drinking water that had been turned brown upon interacting with soil.
Following the pipe eruption shortly after noon, the yellow flag was raised on Benalmadena’s beaches, warning swimmers to take caution. It has since returned to green.
As work on repairing the pipeline continues, water company Acosol said it is working with the Benalmadena water company Emabesa to maintain supply networks.
Acosol had reportedly been planning to update the pipe before it burst, due to it being particularly old.
