[News] Millions in China's Harbin city endure third day without water

HARBIN : Millions of residents in China's Harbin city on Friday endured their third full day without running water due to a toxic chemical spill, as the government worked frantically to clean up the pollution.

Harbin's taps remained turned off as an 80-kilometre slick of the carcinogen benzene and nitrobenzene that was well above national safety levels flowed slowly through the city along the partially frozen Songhua river.

While the government tried to reassure Harbin's 3.8 million urban residents that water supplies would resume quickly, many people were still evacuating the city and engineers were continuing to sink dozens of wells.

Millions of bottles of water were also being trucked in to replenish supermarket and shop shelves that had been stripped bare at the beginning of the crisis.

The slick reached Harbin, the industrial capital of Heilongjiang province in China's far northeast on Thursday morning after taking 11 days to flow 380 kilometres down the Songhua from the spill site in neighbouring Jilin province.

The spill occurred after an explosion at the PetroChina chemical factory on November 13 in Jilin city, although the government refused to admit until Wednesday - 10 days later - that the river had been polluted.

Harbin government officials said the contaminated water was due to exit the city's water catchment areas by early Saturday, with taps to be turned on again on Sunday.

"The mayor has requested the concerned authorities to allow the public water system to resume services on November 27," Heilongjiang public water works spokeswoman Liu Yuzhu told AFP on Friday.

Xinhua news agency said the polluted water in Harbin remained 30 times above national safety levels on Friday morning.

Although the initial panic of water hoarding that preceded the water stoppage appeared to have passed, many residents were still unprepared to put their trust in a government that had initially covered up the chemical spill.

A saleswoman at the Harbin Taifu ticket centre told AFP all train seats out of the city remained booked out on Friday, a scenario usually only associated with national holidays and festivals.

"There are no tickets available for the next week... it is do with the water pollution," the saleswoman, who did not want to be named, said.

A salesman at Harbin airport said sales remained unusually brisk on Friday, with only a few tickets left for Beijing.

The China Daily quoted Harbin businessman Liu Yunlong as saying he was sending his two sons out of the city to avoid any chance of contamination.

"I can't afford to let anything happen to my children," Liu said.

The psychological strain of the water stoppage and contamination fears were also beginning to take a toll with the Harbin authorities setting up counselling hotlines on Thursday for anxious residents, Xinhua said.

And although authorities said taps would be turned on again this weekend, the local government said on its website that 55 wells had been sunk over the past three days and there were plans for many more.

Nevertheless, local authorities were relentlessly upbeat about the city's ability to brush aside the crisis.

"The provincial governor has pledged to drink the first glass of water after the mains are turned on," Liu, at the public water works, said.

"We want to assure everyone that the water is going to be safe to drink. All our efforts are aimed at providing clean and safe drinking water."

it is unbelievable that the public were not told the truth in the first place but have to wait for days until rumors of all sorts were flying and residents of the entire city began to flee...

It is really unbelieveable, I know, wherever happens this kind of thing, the suffering is the people who are common people! It's so unfair.

HARBIN, China : An 80-kilometre-long (50-mile-long) belt of toxic benzene was expected to flow downstream past northeast China's Harbin city Saturday 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 neighbouring Jilin province some 380 kilometres up river.

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."

Harbin's top leader Du Yuxin said he expected taps to be turned on again Sunday evening.

Pollution levels on the river were 33 times above national standards at the peak of the disaster, but late Friday had dropped to nine times above normal levels and were continuing to fall, the city's environmental protection agency said.

"This morning the levels of benzene in the river was about double the national standard," one environmental official 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 kilometres 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 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. It did not give any other details.

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 rumours 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 kilometres 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 neighbouring Russia, fears were also growing that the contaminated water would soon flow into the country.

The Kremlin said Friday it was taking emergency steps to protect millions of people in its Far East region from the toxic spill.

It is no surprise at all to us.

Dig its own grave and shoot its own foot.