The Foreign Ministry
said on Thursday that the government will try its utmost to
minimize the impact of the contamination of northeast China's
Songhua River on neighboring parts of Russia, including
intensifying monitoring and water quality control measures.
"China is very concerned about the possible hazards to Russia
and has informed its neighbor several times of the pollution,"
ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao said at a press conference.
"Both have pledged to cooperate closely to handle the
pollution."
At another press conference the same day, a senior State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) official said
China will keep informing the Russian side of what it has learnt
from monitoring the situation.
"The two sides are making specific arrangements for opening a
hotline for the matter," said Zhang Lijun, deputy director of the
SEPA.
He said the polluted water, which reached Heilongjiang's
provincial capital Harbin on Thursday morning, is expected to flow
into the Heilongjiang River (called the Amur River in Russia) on
the Sino-Russian border in around 14 days judging from the current
speed of flow.
Experts estimate that around 100 tons of pollutants containing
benzene leaked into the river after the November 13 explosion at an
upstream chemical plant run by China National Petroleum Corp's
Jilin Petrochemical Company.
Cities along the river have been forced to suspend use of the
river's water for various periods. Harbin, a city of more than 3
million residents, stopped drawing water from it for four days on
Wednesday.
Zhang said that as the polluted water flows downstream, the
density of pollutants has markedly decreased.
The pollutants, stretching over an area around 80 kilometers
long, will be further diluted after they pass Harbin in around 40
hours as several major tributaries are to join the Songhua River,
according to Zhang.
The amount of nitrobenzene in the water exceeded the national
limit 29.9 times, and that of benzene 2.6 times when it passed
Zhaoyuan between November 20 and 22. These figures have already
fallen to about 10.7 and 0.08 times the national limits
respectively, he said.
Measures already taken by local governments include blocking the
entry of pollutants, discharging water from two reservoirs to
dilute them, organizing experts to study control measures, and
enhancing monitoring work, part of the environmental emergency
response mechanism activated shortly after the explosion.
Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the environmental department and
regional governments to take effective measures to guarantee the
safety of potable water, and the State Council dispatched an expert
group, headed by director of the National Bureau of Production
Safety Supervision and Administration Li Yizhong, to Harbin to
handle the situation.
Water supplies and active carbon used to purify water are being
shipped to the affected areas.
A SEPA official said that no one has been harmed because the
public was informed in a timely fashion.
(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2005)
