Chinese City of Three
Million Announces Cutoff of Water Supply, Sparking Water-Buying Rush
November 22, 2005 — By Alexa Olesen, Associated Press
BEIJING — A Chinese city of 3 million
people has set off panicked buying of bottled water by announcing its
water system will be shut down for four days to check for contamination
from a chemical plant explosion, news reports said Tuesday.
The city government of Harbin in China's northeast announced in a
bulletin on its official Web site that it would suspend water service
for four days starting from Tuesday evening.
It didn't say how many homes would be affected.
On Monday, "anxious residents thronged supermarkets and shops to buy
whatever they could lay their hands on," the government newspaper China
Daily said. Photos in the newspaper showed empty supermarket shelves
labeled "drinking water."
The shutdown was prompted by a Nov. 13 explosion at a petrochemical
plant in the nearby city of Jilin that killed five people, the official
Xinhua News Agency said.
City officials worried that the blast "may have caused a leakage of
poisonous substances" into the Songhua River, which supplies Harbin with
drinking water.
The explosion in Jilin also forced the evacuation of 10,000 nearby
residents. The blast was blamed on human error in a tower that processed
benzene, a highly flammable liquid.
"To ensure the safety of water, the municipal government has decided to
thoroughly check the city's water supply system and cut off supply
temporarily," the city statement said.
Prices of bottled water in Harbin have doubled, and the city government
has ordered bathhouses and car washes to suspend operation, the China
Daily said.
The city government warned on its Web site that retailers who hiked the
price of water would be punished according to the law, but gave no
specifics.
Customers of the Shangri-La Hotel in Harbin were being asked to use
water sparingly by limiting showers and laundry usage, the hotel's
public relations manager, Zhang Yan, said by telephone.
Zhang said the hotel had stored 600 tons of water for drinking and
everyday use, which at their current occupancy level would last them
about four days.
Extra bottled water was also being trucked in from other Shangri-La
Hotels in China, she said.
The Shanghai Daily newspaper said on its Web site Tuesday that Harbin
had 918 groundwater wells that would continue to supply some residential
areas with water.
Fire engines would be used to pump water from the wells to hospitals,
schools and public organizations in need, it said.
Source: Associated Press
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