A third major toxic spill in China in as many months has threatened water supplies to millions of residents of two central cities, officials and state media said yesterday.
A clean-up accident allowed the chemical cadmium, which can cause neurological disorders and cancer, to flood out of a smelting works and into the Xiangjiang River in Hunan Province on Jan. 4, Xinhua news agency said.
The river supplies tap water to residents in the provincial capital Changsha, which has about 6 million people, and nearby Xiangtan city, which has 700,000 inhabitants.
Officials said they have taken emergency measures and residents were not in danger.
Local authorities have blocked off the spill and are trying to neutralize the cadmium slick with different chemicals and dilute it by releasing water from a dam.
"Even though this pollution incident is not over, there's no impact on residents' lives," said an officer surnamed Zhou at the Changsha city government's office.
"The water being supplied by the water treatment plants is still up to standard," he added.
A spokesman from Xiangtan government also gave similar assurances.
Xinhua said the amount of cadmium in the river reached 25.6 times above safe levels at its peak but had dropped to 0.14 times on Saturday.
Officials said they did not have to shut off water supplies as measures they took were effective and water treatment plants were able to filter out the pollution.
Local residents, including hotels in Xiangtan, also said there was no disruption to their supply.
However several residents said they did not know about the spill, which was not reported on Xinhua, the main government mouthpiece, until Saturday night. It was not clear whether local media had reported it earlier.
The incident follows a cadmium spill in southern China's Guangdong Province which cut tap water supply to tens of thousands of people for more than a week last month.
In November, a toxic benzene slick from a factory explosion in northeast China polluted the Songhua River and cut tap water to millions of city-dwellers in Heilongjiang Province.
The spills have focused attention on water pollution in a country where millions still lack safe drinking water and most rivers are polluted by industrial waste.
The latest accident occurred due to human error, the director of Hunan Province's environmental protection bureau was quoted as saying.
The Zhuzhou Water Conservancy Investment Co caused the spill while it was trying to clear silt out of Xiawan Harbor in Zhuzhou city, where the smelter is located upstream from Xiangtan and Changsha, he said.
The cadmium-contaminated water collected in two lakes which then overflowed into the river.
also see story:
China to put billions into 5-year river clean up campaign
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS