The drinking water market is stable in the northeastern Chinese city of Mudanjiang which recently reported river pollution, according to a local official on Thursday.

A total of 15,521 boxes of bottled water were sold in Mudanjiang on Tuesday, seven times more than normal, but on Wednesday, the sales volume dropped rapidly to 5,562 boxes, Wang Shuyin, spokesman and secretary-general for the Mudanjiang municipal government, told a press conference.

"The market has stabilized," Wang said. He attributed the situation to the efforts taken by local authorities to increase supply of mineral water and bottled water in recent days.

"There has been no panic buying of drinking water in our supermarket," a salesman at the city's Dafuyuan Supermarket told Xinhua.

The local environmental watchdog has held three enterprises accountable for polluting a major water source in this city of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Their operations were suspended on Thursday.

Environment administrations of Mudanjiang and the neighboring Hailin City have investigated 23 industrial enterprises along the Hailang River, a major water supply source of Mudanjiang City, andfound three of them were discharging pollutants above the nationalsafety level.

The three enterprises being shut down include Hailin Xueyuan Distillery, the brewery of Hailin Beer, and a butchery of Hailin Food Company.

Experts said the distilleries had emitted a great deal of graininto the river, which led to fermenting and accelerated reproduction of the organisms as the weather is getting warmer.

Experts confirmed on Thursday that the organisms in the river were a type of aquatic fungus, whose appearance indicates the water has become polluted.

The water supply source of Mudanjiang is located at the lower reaches of the Hailang River, a tributary of the Mudanjiang River.Local people have built three nets in Hailang River to block the fungus, which was detected on Feb. 19.

The local water supply corporation has sterilized its running water with chlorine. Tap water in the city is safe for drinking, experts said.

"My neighbors and I are all using tap water for cooking," a citizen surnamed Lu told Xinhua.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2006)