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Harbin ready to resume water supply
By Li Fangchao (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-26 05:29 "The presence of disciplinary officials on the team indicates that punishment
of irresponsible acts are on the way," Xinhua said, without elaborating.
On Friday, Harbin resident Ding Ning sued the Jilin plant in Nangang District
Court, seeking 15 yuan (US$1.85), the amount he spent on bottled water, and a
formal apology, local media reported. CNPC, the parent company, had apologized
on Thursday. The court said it would decide on Monday whether to accept the
case.
Residents line up to receive water in Harbin,
capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, November 25,
2005. [Reuters] | It was estimated that about 100
tons of benzene and nitrobenzene were released into the Songhua River. The
pollutants, moving at 2 kilometres an hour, were expected to flow downstream
into Russia within a few weeks.
The concentration of nitrobenzene reached its peak at midnight on Thursday at
Sifangtai, Harbin's first water inlet. It was 33 times more than the safety
level, the Harbin Municipal Environment Bureau said on Friday.
An official with the Ministry of Water Resources said water flow in the
Songhua is quite slow, as it is in a dry and frozen season. The ministry has
ordered two reservoirs along the Songhua to discharge more water to dilute the
pollutants,
The Fengman Hydropower Station in the city of Jilin, in neighbouring Jilin
Province, was discharging water at 1,000 cubic metres a second, six times its
usual volume.
The concentration is expected to fall further as more tributaries join the
Songhua downstream from Harbin, said Zhou Linbo, spokesman for the bureau.
There were no cases of residents suffering from poison as a result of water
pollution, said Liu Minglie, director of the Harbin Municipal Health Bureau.
![A Chinese woman pulls two pots of water on a trolley as residents line up to receive water in the city of Harbin, the capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province, November 26, 2005. [Reuters]](xin_1111022613155582980128.jpg)
A Chinese woman pulls two pots of water on a
trolley as residents line up to receive water in the city of Harbin, the
capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province, November 26, 2005.
[Reuters] | "We are checking the newly drilled
wells for benzene and nitrobenzene," he said.
To ease public concern over possible contamination in underground water, Liu
said that no benzene or nitrobenzene had been found in the wells within one
kilometre of the river bank. The health bureau disinfected 435 wells and 124
water tanker vehicles, he said.
Meanwhile, another chemical plant accident hundreds of kilometres away
prompted fears of a second benzene leak and warnings to residents not to drink
river water, Xinhua said.
The second incident was in Dianjiang, a county in Chongqing Municipality,
Southwest China, where an explosion at a chemical plant on Thursday killed one
worker, Xinhua said.
(China Daily 11/26/2005 page1)
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