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Toxic water crisis easing for China's Harbin city

Posted on: Friday, 25 November 2005, 23:47 CST

By Chris Buckley

HARBIN, China (Reuters) - A surge of toxic chemicals pouring down the river through a northeastern Chinese city was expected to have passed through by early Sunday morning, bringing respite from a water crisis that has plagued residents.

As the nine million people in Harbin suffered a fourth day without running water, soldiers and workers were racing to ensure the city's water would be safe to drink when taps were turned back on, installing new filters at treatment plants, the China Daily said.

The pipe network was shut down on Tuesday evening to protect Harbin residents from up to 100 tons of cancer-causing benzene compounds spilled into the Songhua river from which Harbin pumps its water. An explosion at a chemical plant upstream triggered the release of the toxins.

The spill will affect hundreds of thousands more people in China alone as it heads downstream, and will then cross into Russia, although officials say the concentration of toxins will fall as other tributaries join the river, the China Daily reported.

Benzene levels in Harbin were down to 3.7 times officially acceptable levels early on Saturday compared to 30 times on Friday morning, the city government Web site said.

But the passage of the 80 kilometer (50 mile) slick, flowing at around 2 km an hour, has been slowed by low water levels and lumps of ice that have already formed on the freezing water, state media said.

ENVIRONMENTAL WORRIES

The crisis has raised questions about the environmental costs of China's economic boom. Around 70 percent of China's rivers are contaminated, and the State Council, or cabinet, recently described the state of the country's environment as "grim."

"This is going to encourage the people to have higher expectations. People are increasingly concerned about environmental issues...and this will be another stimulus," said Zhang Wei, an expert on environmental issues and the media.

Beijing has sent a team of investigators to probe the accident, while the chemical plant's parent company China National Petroleum Corp has apologized for the pollution. But one newspaper has accused officials of initially trying to hush up the disaster.

Chinese reporters covering the crisis in Harbin said editors had advised them some of their reports went too far and they were expected to take the lead from the official Xinhua news agency.

Environmentalists also have complained that China is not sharing enough information to help protect Russia's rivers and its residents, including 1.5 million living in the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, which draws drinking water from the Songhua.

The pollution is expected to reach its water collection points by early December.

Source: REUTERS

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