Explosion forces Chinese city to shut off water supply

A CHINESE city of 3.8 million people closed schools and was trucking in drinking water yesterday after shutting down its water system following a chemical plant explosion that officials said polluted a river with toxic benzene.

The announcement of the shutdown in Harbin in China's north-east set off panicked buying this week of bottled water, milk and soft drinks that left supermarket shelves bare.

The water system was shut down at midnight on Tuesday and probably will stay out of service for four days, said an official of its Municipal Water Supply Group. He would give only his surname, Chen.

An explosion on November 13 at a chemical plant in the nearby city of Jilin left the Songhua River, Harbin's main water source, polluted with benzene, a toxic, flammable liquid, the government said.

Though officials denied it, water supplies were also cut in at least one district of Songyuan city in neighbouring Jilin province, about 90 miles south-west of Harbin, residents said.

A doctor from the Ningjiang District Central Hospital and a teacher from Ningjiang No 1 Middle School said the water had been cut off for five to seven days already. Both refused to give their names.

Russian television reports said concern was growing over the pollution threat in the Russian border city of Khabarovsk, about 435 miles down river from Harbin on the Songhua.

In Harbin, officials tried to downplay the crisis.

"The provincial government is sending in bottled drinking water from other cities," Chen said.

There is no sign that benzene got into the city water system, said an employee of the Harbin Environmental Bureau who would give only his surname, Wang.

There were no reports of anyone injured by drinking the polluted water.