China: 'This is our Katrina'
2005-11-24 13:36
Harbin - An 80km-long slick of highly toxic benzene surged down a river into one of China's biggest cities on Thursday, leaving up to four million people without public water services.
The chemical slick reached the outskirts of Harbin, capital of China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, in the early hours of Thursday, the local government said.
The contamination was caused by a massive explosion at a PetroChina benzene factory in neighbouring Jilin province, about 380km from Harbin up the Songhua river, on November 13.
The government only acknowledged the environmental disaster on Wednesday, following days of rumour mongering that led to panic buying and hoarding of water and food supplies in Harbin.
Harbin, which is highly dependent on the 1 897km Songhua for its water supplies, has about 3.8 million urban residents and a total population of about nine million.
Four days of no water
It was still unclear on Thursday how the environmental disaster had impacted Songyuan and Zhaoyuan, two other major cities between Harbin and Jilin that are also dependent on the Songhua for water.
After cutting the water supplies to Harbin's urban residents at midnight on Tuesday, the government on Thursday was urging the city's residents to remain calm.
"We must find solutions for the people's basic need for water... the supply of water is directly linked to the basic health interests of everyone," Heilongjiang's top leader, Song Fatang, said in a statement.
"We must ensure that the emotions of the people are stable, that the supply and demand of the city's markets are stable and we must actively respond to any problems that may occur."
According to the government, benzene pollution levels on the Songhua river exceeded 103 times national safety levels on November 19, about 130km up river from Harbin.
The levels of benzene, a carcinogen that can be lethal if someone is exposed to high levels, even in small doses, were recorded as 108 times above safety levels near Jilin city on the day of the blast.
The government said the contaminated water was expected to enter Harbin at levels some 29 times about safety standards.
Government officials have predicted that public water cuts in Harbin could last up to four days.
"This might be the water equivalent to the Chinese government that Katrina was to the United States," Lester Brown, who is also an honorary member of the China Academy of Sciences, China's top scientific institute, told AFP.
"The effects of Katrina in the United States broke all US records by several fold and was a major challenge. The US government could not mount an effective response.
"Here it is similar with up to four million people without water."