A tributary of China’s Yellow River has been polluted by an oil spill, state-run media reported yesterday, in the latest environmental accident to threaten the nation’s drinking water.
About 1,000 tonnes of oil sludge has contaminated farmland and the Luohe River in Shaanxi Province after a recycling pool at a sewage treatment plant collapsed on March 28, the China Daily said.
More than 2,000 people have been scrambling to clean up the mess and eight containment belts have been set up downstream from the spill, the English-language newspaper said.
“At present, the sludge in the river has been effectively controlled and we will make efforts to clean up the contamination in the farmland and valley,” local government official Wang Hongli was quoted as saying.
Reporters’ calls to the local environmental protection bureau went unanswered.
More than 30 years of unbridled economic growth have left most of China’s lakes and rivers heavily polluted, while the nation’s urban dwellers also face some of the world’s worst air pollution.
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