November 26, 2005
Baku Today
HARBIN, China (AFP) - An 80-kilometer-long (50-mile-long) belt of toxic benzene had largely flowed downstream past northeast China's Harbin city as Premier Wen Jiabao arrived to inspect clean-up efforts.
Photo: Staff from the Harbin enviromental protection bureau take water samples from the Songhua river. Authorities have moved to calm fears of a public health crisis as a toxic benzene spill from China drifted down a river toward Russia, saying there would be plenty of advance notice and plenty of fresh water on hand when the poison slick arrived. © AFP Peter Parks
An 80-kilometer-long (50-mile-long) belt of toxic benzene had largely flowed downstream past northeast China's Harbin city as Premier Wen Jiabao arrived to inspect clean-up efforts.
Wen's arrival comes after a central government team was dispatched to help coordinate relief efforts and investigate a 10-day delay in announcing the toxic spill to the public.
Water supplies to the city's 3.8 million residents were expected to resume Sunday, city officials said, as the slick moved past the capital of Heilongjiang province and headed toward the Russian border.
The environmental disaster began when some 100 tons of benzene was dumped into the river after a huge explosion at a chemical plant on November 13 in neighboring Jilin province some 380 kilometers up river.
The calamity has been widely seen as a reflection of China's dismal environmental situation which has been largely ignored during 25 years of fast- paced economic growth.
The government has scrambled to avoid a health crisis by trucking in massive supplies of bottled water and sinking new wells around the city after water supplies were cut off late Tuesday.
"I hope that you make all efforts to ensure that measures are taken to guarantee the people can have safe and drinkable water," Wen said at a Harbin water supply plant where workers were installing a new water filtration system.
Wen said he hoped "that we will not allow any more interruptions in the public water system again."
Pollution levels on the river which were 100 times above national standards at the peak of the disaster, fell to 33 times normal levels early Friday before dropping to nine times above the safe water standard Friday night, the city's environmental protection agency said.
"This morning the levels of nitrobenzene in the river was about double the national standard ... the levels are continuing to fall," one environmental official surnamed Wu told AFP.
Major tributaries to the Songhua river below Harbin would help further dilute the pollution as it made its way to the Russian border some 600 kilometers away, he said.
The spill occurred when the explosion flattened a PetroChina chemical factory in Jilin city.
The government refused to admit the environmental disaster until Wednesday -- 10 days later -- when it said the river had been polluted with cancer-causing benzene, the more dangerous nitrobenzene and other chemicals.
The team of investigators from Beijing included disciplinary officials, indicating that "punishments of irresponsible acts are on the way," Xinhua news agency reported.
Saturday's Heilongjiang Morning News accused top officials in Jilin province and at the chemical factory of not only trying to mask the spill but also refusing to take responsibility for the alleged cover up.
"The right to make news announcements in situations like this does not lie with us, it belongs to the city's (Communist Party) propaganda bureau," one unnamed Jilin environmental protection agency official was quoted as saying.
Earlier the China Youth Daily published an account of the cover up that led to widespread confusion and the panic buying of water and supplies last weekend, including a wild rumor of a pending earthquake.
"If information is not given in a timely, accurate and transparent manner, it will leave room for rumors to spread," the paper said.
The government only confirmed the extent of the disaster as the pollution slick entered the city.
Other residents upstream in Jilin province said they were unaware of the toxic belt of benzene until well after it had passed their homes.
"No one has told us about it," a resident of Wujiazhan, a town of about 50,000 people some 150 kilometers downstream from Jilin city, told AFP.
"We only heard about it from the television when it (the pollution) had arrived in Harbin," the resident surnamed Wu said.
In neighboring Russia, fears were also growing that the contaminated water would soon flow into the country, but authorities said there would be plenty of advance notice and plenty of fresh water on hand when the poison slick arrived.
China meanwhile extended its "deep apologies" to Russia for the contamination and also informed the United Nations's environmental bodies of the effects of the disaster, Xinhua said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing Saturday informed Russian ambassador Sergey Razov about the situation and expressed regret over possible harm to the Russian people, it said.
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