Panic water buying in a major eastern Chinese city has broken out with millions hoarding drinking supplies after public taps became tainted with polluted lake water, state press reported Thursday.

Stores in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, began rationing sales of bottled water after the outbreak of blue-green algae contaminated the drinking supplies of the city of five million people, Xinhua news agency reported.


The industrial city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze river relies on the once scenic Taihu lake for its drinking supplies, it said.

"Citizens complained that tap water was so tainted and smelly that they could not wash with it," the report said.