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Chemical Spill: China Shuts Factory, Detains
Seven
BEIJING - Chinese authorities have
closed a factory and detained a manager and seven others following a
chemical spill on a tributary to the Songhua River, which was poisoned by
a huge benzene spill late last year.
The Changbai Jingxi Chemical Company
dumped about 10 cubic metres of chemicals into the Mangniu River in
northeast China's Jilin province on Aug. 21, the chief of China's State
Environmental Protection Administration, Zhou Shengxian, said in a report
in the China Environment News on Thursday.
Zhou warned factories to expect
strict treatment and sweeping inspections.
"When companies are serious
polluters, we must be determined to get rid of some, reform some, and
clean up some within a set time," Zhou told officials on Tuesday, the
report said.
"We must focus our energies on
resolving a bunch of longstanding problems and ensure water environmental
safety in the Songhua River basin."
A chemical plant explosion in Jilin
in November dumped 100 tonnes of benzene into the Songhua. The spill,
initially covered up by local officials, led to the shutdown of water
supplies to millions of people downstream and sparked concern downstream
in Russia.
The government brought in over 1,000
soldiers and firefighters in an effort to stop the latest 5-km (3-mile)
slick of reddish xylidine, an earlier report said. The chemicals did not
enter the Songhua, Zhou asserted on Tuesday.
China has experienced a series of
industrial accidents that have contaminated rivers.
Earlier this month, a ship carrying
more than 200 tonnes of sulphuric acid ran aground near the eastern
Chinese city of Hangzhou, leaking chemicals into an ancient canal.
And in June, a truck carrying coal
tar overturned, dumping the load into the Dasha River in the northern
province of Shanxi and contaminating water supplies for 50,000 people.
Source: Reuters News Service 2006
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