Millions of people in the affected areas suffered from undrinkable tap water.

Similar crises may crop up at any time as the country's top environment watchdog warned on Thursday that the algae is posing a hidden threat in the country's major lakes and reservoirs.

However, the real culprits are improper human activities or the over-exploitation of the environment. The algae will only bloom in nutrition-rich waters - in other words, it feeds on pollutants discharged into the water.

In a sense, the small plant is teaching us a lesson: If we cannot refrain from sacrificing the environment for development, we will pay a dear price.

The country has surprised the world for its string of economic miracles in recent years. Meanwhile, the central government realized years ago that we should strive for sustainable development.

Regrettably, in practice and very often at the grass-root level, the zeal for making immediate economic benefits and moving up the official ladder has pushed local officials to give the green light to projects that have adverse impact on the environment. While contributing to local coffers, these heavily polluted industries have also become a time bomb for triggering environmental crisis and threatening the well being of people.

Sadly, many of the damages caused by this development mentality are irreversible. For one thing, as it was revealed on Thursday, the country is losing some 20 natural lakes annually due to the deteriorating environment.

It is time we paid back the debt we owed to mother nature.

While drawing up lessons from the Taihu water pollution outbreak, Jiangsu Party Chief Li Yuanchao has vowed to introduce strict no-compromise measures to curb water pollution in his province, even if doing so would slow economic growth.

We believe his sincerity and hope officials in other places would also feel strongly about the needs to make up the damages we have wrecked on nature.