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Toxic water of polluted river reaches Harbin
(AFP/Reuters/China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-24 05:40 Russia seeks details
Russia's environmental protection agency said on Wednesday it was worried
that the pollution could affect drinking water supplies in its Khabarovsk
region, which the Songhua enters several hundred kilometres downstream from
Harbin.
The agency said the chemicals could reach water collection points for the
city of Khabarovsk, just over the border from China, by Saturday, adding that it
had asked the Russian Foreign Office to contact China about what pollutants were
involved.
Polluted water in Songhua River reaches Harbin, the
capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province November 24,
2005. A stretch of potentially lethally polluted river water
headed towards one of China's biggest cities on Thursday after
an explosion at a petrochemical plant. China said on Wednesday
the blast had caused 'major pollution' in the Songhua River
from which Harbin and home to nine million people, draws its
drinking water.
[newsphoto] | | | Russian
Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency
as saying Russia would take all necessary steps to protect people in Khabarovsk.
"But so as to make sure these measures are effective, we need more
information from the Chinese. We need to more accurately know the make-up of the
pollutants," he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing on Thursday
that China has informed Russia of the water pollution situation in the river, a
tributary of the Heilong River (called Amur River in Russia) on the border
between the Russian far east and China.
Russia expressed appreciation of
China's information, said Liu, adding that China will further strengthen the
monitoring of the pollution situation and the level of pollutants in the river.
China will inform Russia at any moment of the latest situation, to enable the
latter to make quick and timely responses, the spokesman said. The blast of the
petrochemical plant happened about 350 kilometer away from the China-Russia
boundary.
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