More Chinese cities brace for chemical spill

Beijing tried to ease strains with Moscow over a river-borne toxic spill flowing toward Russia by today promising to send filtering materials, while five more Chinese cities prepared to stop drawing water from the river.

On the Russian side, residents stocked up on bottled water and an official warned that lack of running water could threaten supplies of heat in the dead of winter.

The spill of benzene into the Songhua River from a November 13 chemical plant explosion has disrupted life for millions of Chinese and tested Beijing's ties with Moscow, a key diplomatic partner and source of much-needed oil.

"The Chinese side has decided to provide the Russian side with monitoring devices to rapidly monitor the pollution and is willing to send people to install them," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a briefing in Beijing.

China also plans to send 150 tons of activated charcoal for use in filtering drinking water, Qin said. He said he didn't know whether the two sides discussed compensation.

The disaster has prompted a massive relief effort at home by China's communist government, which is trying to repair its image after complaints that officials concealed the spill and lied to the public.

Officials have sent millions of bottles of drinking water and fleets of water trucks to communities on the Songhua that have cut off running water as the benzene passed. The biggest was the industrial centre of Harbin, where 3.8 million people went without water last week.

Downstream, Dalianhe shut down running water to 26,000 residents yesterday.

The cities of Tangyuan, Jiamusi, Huachuan, Fujin and Tongjiang were preparing to stop drawing river water as the slick approached, according to provincial and local officials.

It wasn't immediately clear how many people would be affected or whether those communities could draw on wells or other sources to continue supplying running water.

Today, residents of Dalianhe lined up with jugs and buckets to get drinking water delivered by fire trucks after the government shut down drinking water to 26,000 people.

"When one person has trouble, eight will lend a hand," read banners on the trucks. Some were from as far away as Harbin, about 150 miles to the west.

"Every big and little pot at home is filled," said Zhang Yanling, a waitress in a restaurant.

Zhang had her 11-year-old daughter with her at work because schools have closed for six days. But she said that aside from having to lug water jugs home, the shutdown hasn't disrupted life.

"If we run out of water, we can go to the water truck. There's one in every neighbourhood," she said.

The water distribution effort has been widely publicised in a propaganda campaign meant to assure the public of the Communist Party's concern and its ability to look out for their welfare.

Today, Dalianhe television showed party officials visiting homes to make sure families had adequate supplies.

"Our goal is that ordinary life won't feel the slightest impact," said Song Zegang, a spokesman for the Communist Party committee of Yilan County, where Dalianhe is located.

The Songhua flows into the Heilongjiang River, which becomes the Amur in Russia.

The spill is expected to hit Khabarovsk, a border city of 580,000, by about December 15, according to the Far East Meteorological and Environmental Monitoring Service.

Khabarovsk will stop drawing water from the Amur only in the event of a high concentration of benzene, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing Deputy Mayor Andrei Vologzhanin.

Vologzhanin said the city has enough drinking water for 10 days in the event of a shutdown, ITAR-Tass said.

A spokeswoman for the Khabarovsk power company warned that poorer-quality water could damage energy facilities, affecting heating systems, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency. Most central heating in Russia comes from networks of hot water pipes snaking through cities.

"The consequences of such damage at the height of winter would be catastrophic," said the spokeswoman, Natalya Prokofyeva.

Oleg Mitvol, the deputy chief of Russia's Federal Natural Resources Service, told reporters in Moscow that after the toxic slick passes Khabarovsk, authorities will have to keep cleaning water at least until next June after benzene-laced ice melts in spring.