Residents of a town along a poisoned river in northern China lined up with jugs and buckets to get water from trucks yesterday after officials shut down running water to 26,000 people.
Local authorities said the shutdown in Dalianhe would last three days and Chinese Communist Party members went door-to-door giving out bottled water in an effort to show that China's leaders can protect the public.
Service was stopped at 6pm on Wednesday on the outskirts of Yilan, a city in Heilongjiang Province, as a slick of benzene approached on the Songhua River. The toxic chemical was spewed into the river after an industrial accident on Nov. 13 in a neighboring province.
The government said Yilan itself would not likely be affected because the city of about 110,000 people gets its water from wells, not the river.
Yesterday, trucks filled with water were parked in neighborhoods around Dalianhe, a town of about 30,000 people near Yilan.
"When one person has trouble, eight will lend a hand," read a banner attached on the side of one of the vehicles. Workers stood by to help residents fill up their containers.
"This is just to have a little bit extra," said Zhang Liping, a 56-year-old retiree. "We got plenty of warning. We have lots of water at home."
Some trucks were from as far away as Harbin, about 250km west, where water to 3.8 million people was shut down for five days because of the pollution.
In Yilan, news reports showed police and party members in red armbands going door-to-door in freezing weather, handing out leaflets and giving cases of drinking water to the elderly and poor. In one scene, an elderly man lying in bed shook hands with a police commander.
Riverfront parks were closed in Yilan, which lies at the confluence of the Songhua and Mudan Rivers, a famous scenic spot.
Chinese Communist leaders are eager to show that while they failed to prevent the spill, they are concerned about public safety and can marshal the resources to handle the aftermath.
"I really thank the government," another man, Zhou Changgui, was shown saying.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of