Xinhua
August 26, 2006

The Songhua River in northeast China has avoided a chemical pollution crisis after 10 tons of chemicals were tipped into a tributary, a state environment official said.

The Songhua River in northeast China has avoided a chemical pollution crisis after 10 tons of chemicals were tipped into a tributary, a state environment official said yesterday. Speaking at a government conference, Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, ruled out the possibility of river pollution. Environmental experts had managed to contain and treat a toxic chemical slick on the Mangniu River, a tributary of Songhua, avoiding pollution damage to the waterway, the official said. “Monitoring of the waterway in the Jilin Province section showed the water quality met national standards,” said Zhou. “No people or animals were reported to be affected by the spill in the Mangniu River.” Ten tons of a toxic chemical were dumped into the Mangniu on Monday by two truck drivers in Jilin City, northeast China’s Jilin Province, leaving a five-kilometer bubbling red slick. The trucks were supposed to discharge the waste somewhere out of town. Experts and officials from the provincial and central governments and environmental protection departments set up an emergency pollution control base at the site as soon as the incident was detected. More than 1,000 army personnel and firefighters had built a pollution interception dam and two dams with activated carbon to absorb the pollutants. The affected water was filtered before entering the Songhua. The dumped chemical is xylidine, harmful to the liver, lungs and kidneys. The drivers and five managers of the Changbaishan Jingxi Chemical Company were detained and the government of Jilin City ordered the company to cease production.