Chinese City Restores
Running Water after Shutdown Caused by Toxic Spill
November 28, 2005 — By Joe McDonald, Associated Press
HARBIN, China — Running water
returned to this northeast city of 3.8 million people Sunday, ending a
five-day shutdown blamed on a chemical spill that embarrassed the
government and highlighted China's mounting environmental problems.
However, officials warned that what was coming out the tap in frigid
Harbin still was too dirty to drink.
Water service started returning to this provincial capital shortly
before 6 p.m. after the government said toxins spewed into the Songhua
River by a chemical plant explosion had returned to safe levels.
Residents said service did not resume in some areas for several more
hours.
"When that running water came back on, it was a completely wonderful
feeling. It's been four days since I had a shower," said grinning taxi
driver Cao Sijun, 46.
Local television showed the governor of Heilongjiang province, where
Harbin is located, drinking a glass drawn from the tap in a Harbin
family's home after service resumed.
But the government warned the public that supplies lying in pipes for
five days were too dirty to drink. It said it would announce on radio
and television when the water was safe enough first to bathe in and
later to drink.
"We still have to wait a little longer," sighed Wang Yixin, a
34-year-old entrepreneur. However, she said, "tomorrow we'll clean the
whole apartment and wash all our clothes."
The deadly Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion in Jilin, a city upstream,
was a political disaster for President Hu Jintao's government and cast a
harsh light on the environmental costs of China's breakneck development.
Hu's government issued embarrassing apologies to China's public and to
Russia, where a border city downstream is bracing for the arrival of the
benzene slick that was 50 miles long.
The pollutants were expected to reach Russian territory within days and
Khabarovsk, a city of 580,000, within weeks. A top Russian environmental
official, Oleg Mitvol, told the Ekho Moskvy radio Sunday that the nation
will airlift 50 tons of activated carbon to treatment plants along the
Amur River in a bid to absorb the toxins.
Environmentalists criticized China's response to the spill and
questioned the decision to allow a facility handling such dangerous
materials near a key water source.
The government has promised to investigate the spill and punish any
officials found responsible. The plant is operated by a subsidiary of
China's biggest oil company, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.
State media have accused local officials of first concealing and then
lying about the explosion, which killed five people and forced the
evacuation of 10,000 others.
It was not until this week that the government said the accident dumped
100 tons of benzene into the Songhua. Benzene is used in the manufacture
of plastics, detergents and pesticides.
The announcement that Harbin would suspend water service triggered
panic-buying of bottled water, soft drinks and milk. Schools closed and
residents stocked up on water in bathtubs and tea kettles.
"We filled every pot and bucket," said Cao, pointing to a row of vessels
on the floor of his family's second-story apartment in a concrete-slab
building.
Despite the initial anxiety, many took the water cutoff stoically,
lining up in biting cold for supplies from trucks sent daily by the city
government. The city also trucked in millions of bottles of drinking
water and said it was drilling 100 new water wells to supplement the 918
already supplying hospitals and some residential areas.
"It was a bit hard to take," said Wang, who lugged supplies up seven
flights of stairs to her apartment.
On Sunday, television cameras followed Heilongjiang Gov. Zhang Zuoji
into the home of 75-year-old Pang Yucheng, where he drank a glass of
boiled tap water.
"It tastes good," the governor said.
The city government did not say how many days it might be until the
water was safe for public consumption.
"The first water is dangerous because it's been sitting in pipes for
five days. We will advise citizens when they can drink the water," Wang
Minghe, deputy general manager of the Harbin water department, told
reporters touring a water treatment plant.
The city will cut fees to encourage water use in coming days to flush
out the old supply and "enable it to be drinkable sooner," Wang Minghe
said.
China has suffered a string of such disasters in recent years, each
leading to official promises of more rigorous enforcement of
environmental rules or more sensitivity to public worries.
Industrial pollution is a sensitive issue, with protests reported
nationwide over complaints that factory discharges are ruining crops and
local water supplies.
Protesters often accuse officials of failing to enforce environmental
standards, either in exchange for bribes or for fear of harming economic
growth. The government says all major rivers are dangerously polluted,
threatening water supplies for millions.
With its huge population, China ranks among countries with the smallest
water supplies per person. Hundreds of cities regularly suffer water
shortages.
In the southwest, authorities said contamination of a river from a
second chemical plant explosion this week was under control, the
official Xinhua News Agency said.
The explosion Thursday in Dianjiang, in the Chongqing region, killed one
person and forced the evacuations of 6,000 others.
More than 800 people were helping clean the Guixi River with screens
made of straw and activated charcoal, Xinhua said. It did not say what
chemicals were involved, but it said samples were being tested every
four hours and water supplies were safe.
Source: Associated Press
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