The Chinese government threatened yesterday to punish anyone who tries to hide evidence in a probe into a chemical plant explosion but didn't say if it would target Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders accused of trying to conceal the toxic spill that it caused.
Meanwhile a senior official who told reporters that the explosion didn't cause any pollution has reportedly been found dead.
The country's chief industrial safety official promised to "seriously deal with" any companies or officials found responsible for the Nov. 13 explosion in the northeastern city of Jilin, which killed five people.
PHOTO: AP
"Any move trying to cover up the cause of the accident and any passive attitude toward the probe are deemed deception and a defiance of law," said Li Yizhong, the director of State Administration of Work Safety, quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.
However, Li's reported comments didn't say whether investigators would go after CCP officials accused of trying to cover up the toxic slick that disrupted water supplies to millions of people living along China's Songhua River and is due to reach the Russian city of Khabarovsk early next week.
Chinese media say local party leaders tried initially to conceal the spill of 90 tonnes of benzene and other toxic chemicals from environmental officials, the public and each other. An environmental official said earlier that the failure to report the slick immediately to Beijing cost China its best chance of minimizing the damage.
The government didn't announce that the Songhua had been poisoned with benzene until Nov. 23, the day that Harbin was forced to shut down running water to 3.8 million people.
Any investigation of party officials is usually carried out by the party's own discipline department, not civilian officials such as Li. The party typically must turn over an offender to prosecutors before civilian authorities can pursue a criminal case.
A deputy mayor of Jilin who told reporters the chemical plant explosion had not led to any pollution was found dead at home on Tuesday, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper reported yesterday.
Ta Kung Pao said the cause of death for 43-year-old Wang Wei was still unclear.
Wang worked on containing the aftermath of the explosion, running a team responsible for evacuating residents, according to the report.
Also yesterday, another town on the Songhua was warning residents to stock up on water and stop using the river, according to state media.
Fujin, a town of about 115,000 people, relies on groundwater wells, local party newspaper Jiamusi Daily said. The report didn't say whether running water would be suspended, but that families were told to store water for daily use.
The disaster prompted Beijing to apologize both to the Chinese public and to Russia, a key diplomatic partner.
Li, the safety official, is in charge of a Cabinet-level team assigned to investigate the chemical plant explosion and will report directly to senior Chinese leaders, Xinhua said.
The director of China's environmental protection agency has resigned and the general manager of the chemical company blamed for the spill was removed from his post.
But the environmental regulator also has a seat on the party's 198-member Central Committee, the heart of Chinese power, and there has been no indication that he might lose that post.
Premier Wen Jiabao (
In Jiamusi, where the slick arrived on Tuesday, the government is conducting tests for benzene every hour on water drawn from wells, the city's main water source, the city administration's secretary, Zhang Danhong, told reporters.
Jiamusi shut down some wells used by its main water plant last Friday because they were deemed to be too close to the river and authorities were worried about contamination.
A new water plant that draws groundwater from wells farther from the river was rushed into operation ahead of schedule on Monday, and Zhang said it should be sufficient to meet the city's needs until the slick passes.
The city of 480,000 people has so far budgeted 8.1 million yuan (US$1 million) for measures meant to deal with the contamination, Zhang said.
The figure adds to the mounting economic toll from the disaster.
Upstream, Harbin's city government is borrowing 640 million yuan to cope with the spill's aftermath, according to state media.
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