Water back on but unsafe, say China officials

RUNNING water was restored in the Chinese city of Harbin yesterday after a chemical spill forced a five-day shutdown, but officials warned it was not immediately safe to drink.

The official Xinhua News Agency said tests showed a 50-mile spill of toxic benzene in the Songhua River had passed the city of 3.8 million people in north-eastern China.

State television showed the governor of Heilongjiang province, where Harbin is located, drinking a glass of boiled water drawn from a tap at a local family’s home.

“It tastes good,” said Governor Zhang Zuoji.

But Wang Minghe, deputy general manager of the Harbin water department, said the water was still “dangerous” to drink “because it’s been sitting in pipes for five days”. He said it should be used only for other purposes, such as washing.

“We will advise citizens when they can drink the water,” he told reporters taken on a tour of a water treatment plant.

Mr Wang did not say how soon the water might be safe for drinking.

Before service resumed, people lined up for another day in freezing wind holding out buckets and tea kettles for free water delivered by truck from wells operated by factories and a beer brewery.

The city also had trucked in millions of bottles of drinking water and said it was drilling 100 new wells.

The Harbin disaster resulted from a November 13 explosion at a chemical plant in Jilin, a city about 120 miles to the south-east. Five people were killed and 10,000 evacuated.

But it was only last week the government announced the Songhua had been poisoned with 100 tonnes of benzene. The spill may be the biggest ever of the potentially cancer-causing compound used in making detergents and plastics.

State media criticised local officials for reacting slowly and failing to tell the public the truth promptly. Environmentalists said the government failed to prepare for such a disaster and questioned the decision to allow a plant handling such dangerous materials near important water supplies.