Wild viral video shows blood-red scenes covering island after rainstorm

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Viral video circulating online shows how heavy rain recently turned an island’s landscape blood-red.

Hormuz Islandoff Iran in the Persian Gulf turned a deep crimson, dramatic footage shows, after a downpour that washed over the Middle Eastern island’s aptly named Red Beach.

The rainwater is said to have mixed withmineral-rich sedimentand seawater, creating a vivid, blood-red scene.

Hormuz Island turned red due to the heavy rainfall Dec.16, a result of its iron oxide-rich soil, according toreports.

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Heavy rainfall on Hormuz Island creates blood-red runoff as iron oxide soil washes into coastal waters.( Instagram user @mohsen_fitsaz)

In a clip shared onInstagram, the heavy downpour mixes with the deeply colored earth, bringing deep red sediment downhill and into the ocean.

“Hormuz Island is mostly formed of red soil and salt rock,” according to a study byScience Direct, in which researchers looked into heavy metal content in the region’s soil.

“The red soil originates its color from a mixture of hematite and iron hydroxides, but the amount of hematite dominates over iron hydroxides.”

Hormuz Island is a small key in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s southern coast and is home to a few thousand residents.

It’s also known locally as Rainbow Island because of its multicolored soils and rock formations.

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Hormuz Island in the Gulf Strait of Hormuz

Scientists explain the natural phenomenon behind the viral red rain videos from Iran’s Rainbow Island, where hematite-rich soil creates crimson waters.(Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

Reports of the red rain sparked comparisons to “blood rain” described in ancient texts, but scientists say it’s all natural.

“The island is a salt dome, a teardrop-shaped mound of rock salt, gypsum, anhydrite and other evaporites that has risen upward through overlying layers of rock,” researchers fromNASA’s Earth Observatoryexplained.

“Rock salt or halite is weak and buoyant, so it loses its brittleness and flows more like a liquid when under high pressure.”

The striking color is also said to come from iron oxide–rich soil locally known as “golak,” which covers much of Hormuz’s surface.

Scientists explain the natural occurrence on Hormuz Island, known as Rainbow Island, because of its multicolored rock formations.(Hiroon/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

When heavy rain hits the island’s hills and cliffs, water mixes with this mineral-rich earth, carrying fine red particles intocreeks, riversand eventually into the Persian Gulf.

As theiron oxidebecomes suspended in the water, it absorbs shorter wavelengths of light and reflects longer red wavelengths, giving the runoff and coastal waters a crimson color.

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Researchers also said that “blood rain” events happen whenrain or runoffcontains dust, mineral-rich soil or algae.

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