Toxic water from Chinese river set to reach Russia in 14 days

China today cautioned Russia that its worst river pollution case involving an 80-km-long slick of heavily contaminated water will reach the Russian territory in 14 days as both Beijing and Moscow made arrangements to set up a "hotline" to deal with the emergency.

China will keep Russia informed of the conditions of Songhua river pollution after the polluted water passes Harbin, the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province, a Chinese environment official said.

"The two sides are making specific arrangements for opening a hotline for the matter," deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Zhang Lijun, said at a specially arranged press conference.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that senior Chinese officials have briefed the Russian Ambassador to China twice since November 22 about the contamination of the Songhua River.

The polluted water in Songhua River is expected to flow into the Heilong River -- called Amur River in Russia – on the Sino-Russian border in about 14 days judging from the current flow speed, SEPA said.

The Chinese government confirmed yesterday, a day after the city of Harbin cut off tap water to its 3.8 million urban residents as a precautionary measure, that dangerous chemicals had entered the Songhua River after a chemical factory blast upriver on November 13.

The SEPA said that the water is contaminated with benzene and nitrobenzen from the explosion at a petrochemical plant in Jilin province, which is south of Harbin.

The 1,900-km-long Songhua River is the chief tributary of Amur River, which flows along Sino-Russia border. It rises in the Changbai mountains on the border with North Korea.

Harbin officials said on Tuesday, when the water was first cut off, that the stoppage would last four days. Notified only on Monday, many residents stocked up drinking water before the outage.

The water cut continued today after resuming briefly yesterday, with residents living off their stored tap water or bottled water. The contaminated water reached the Harbin portion of the river early today and would exit by the wee hours of Saturday, according to local officials.

Since the river was contaminated on November 13, the benzene and nitrobenzene density in the water is declining gradually after days of sedimentation and adsorption, and authorities in Harbin have added a large amount of active carbon powders into the river to help clean up the water.

Harbin, home to nine million people including 3.8 million in urban districts, has cut off water supply in urban areas since early yesterday to ensure public safety.

Vice-governor of Jilin province Jiao Zhengzhong expressed his sincere sympathy and deep apologies to residents of Harbin for the pollution of the Songhua River caused by the blast in a chemical plant in Jilin, news agencies reported.

Jiao, who is also secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee of Jilin city, where the blast took place, came to Harbin yesterday to discuss ways to treat the pollution and make an apology to Harbin residents, it said.

The November 13 blast in a workshop of a chemical plant under the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Jilin petrochemical company left five people dead and about 70 injured.