Can you imagine turning on your tap or flushing the toilet and instead of the crystal clear water you get a different colored flow? Me neither, but it could happen. In fact, earlier this week a small town in Canada had this very experience.

Residents of Onoway in central Alberta were caught off guard when their water turned barbie-pink. The strange incident early in the morning when some of the town's one-thousand residents were getting ready to start their day.

The city didn't issue a warning so the confused residents, like Trevor Winfield, took to social media to voice their concerns and find answers.

One resident, Sheila Pockett, told Yahoo News that it was her husband who noticed the water's weird hue first. "My hubby gets up this morning to take a shower and he goes, 'Sheila, why is there pink water coming out of the faucet?'" she said laughing.

However, the Mayor's office didn't think this was a laughing matter. They released a statement on Facebook apologizing to the town's inhabitants and reassured them the water is still safe to drink. The Mayor, Dale Krasnow, said in the statement that potassium permanganate ( a salt-based chemical used to treat water, remove iron and hydrogen sulphide) was to blame for the shockingly pink H2O.

"Yesterday, during normal line flushing and filter backwashing, a valve seems to have stuck open allowing potassium permanganate to get into the sump reservoir," reads the statement. "The reservoir was drained, however some of the chemical still made it into the distribution system. While it is alarming to see pink water coming from your taps, potassium permanganate is used in normal treatment processes to help remove iron and manganese and residents were never at risk."

According to the town's website, they're working on an implementing an automated alert system to avoid surprises like this from happening in the future.

Would you still drink the bright colored water if this happened where you live?

[Source: CBC]