Water supplies were cut in parts of the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin yesterday after a flood washed thousands of barrels of a dangerous chemical from a factory into the area’s main river, state media said.
After the accident tap water supplies were stopped in Jilin City, Xinhua news agency said, though residents reached by telephone yesterday morning said water had been restored to some districts.
Local officials said it was merely an unexpected technical suspension unrelated to the accident, but by yesterday afternoon supplies had not resumed.
Downstream in Harbin City — where the barrels could arrive in the next day if they are not picked up first — “panicked residents” were buying up bottled water, even as the government assured people water supplies were uncontaminated, Xinhua added.
“No chemicals had been detected in the river water,” it quoted Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection spokesman Tao Detian (陶德田) as saying.
In Jilin a “small quantity” of two pollutants produced by the plant were found in the Songhua River, and a reporter smelt a strange odor as he watched dozens of the metal containers float through downtown, Xinhua said.
It was not clear how well the barrels were sealed. But the environmental protection ministry said late on Wednesday that tests showed nothing abnormal about the water quality. It would monitor the river closely, it added in a statement.
The incident was triggered when a flood surged through a chemical plant on Wednesday morning, carrying off barrels.
Around 3,000 barrels contained 170kg of chemicals, and another 4,000 were empty, Xinhua said, citing a government official speaking at a news conference in Jilin.
About 2,500 contained trimethyl chloro silicane, a colorless, flammable liquid with a pungent smell, and another 500 contained hexamethyl disilazane, another colorless but smelly liquid. Altogether as much as 500 tonnes could potentially be floating downriver.
Meanwhile, a major Chinese mining company said yesterday that one of its vice presidents has been detained by police in connection with a spill of copper mine waste that poisoned a river near the southeast coast.
Zijin Mining Group received notice on Wednesday that Chen Jiahong (陳家洪) was detained “as a suspect in relation to the major pollution accident,” the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange. It gave no other details.
The June 3 leak into the Ting River in Fujian Province killed tonnes of fish and fouled drinking water for 60,000 people. The waste flowed into crowded Guangdong Province, which abuts Hong Kong.
The facility’s manager, deputy manager and environmental protection officer were detained earlier. The chief county environmental official resigned.
Chen is also a former general manager of the Zijinshan Gold and Copper Mine, where the disaster occurred, Zijin said.
Zijin has publicly apologized and acknowledged a waste pond at the mine was improperly built and operated, which led to the accident.
Chinese media have questioned Zijin’s links with local officials, many of whom own stock in the company. The newspaper China Daily quoted unidentified officials who said local authorities might have helped Zijin cover up earlier environmental accidents.
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