Oil leak blamed for water contamination in Lanzhou
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E-mail Xinhua, April 12, 2014
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Staff members test water samples at Veolia Water, the sole water supplier for more than 2 million people in urban Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, April 11, 2014. Tap water in downtown Lanzhou has been found to contain excessive levels of benzene, provincial authorities said on Friday. Tests carried out in the early hours of Friday showed that tap water contained 200 micrograms of benzene per liter, far exceeding the national limit of 10 micrograms per liter, according to the city's environmental protection office. (Xinhua/Chen Bin) |
Investigators have blamed oil leak from a subsidiary of CNPC, China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, for the tap water contamination that affected more than 2.4 million people in Lanzhou since Friday.
A crude oil leak from one of the oil transmission pipelines owned by Lanzhou Petrochemical contaminated the source water that fed a local water plant, and brought hazardous levels of benzene in the city's tap water, said Yan Zijiang, Lanzhou's environmental protection chief, at a conference call with the city government Saturday.
