River safe after chemicals recovered
Source: Xinhua |
August 2, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WORKERS had recovered 6,387 chemical barrels and located 684 others stuck on mud along a major river in northeast China by last night, four days after floods swept them into the waterway.
The barrels were retrieved within the borders of Jilin Province and water quality tests show that the Songhua River, a major drinking source for millions in the region, has not been contaminated, said officials with the provincial government.
A total of 3,662 barrels filled with highly explosive chemicals and 3,476 empty barrels were swept into the Wende River, a tributary of Songhua, after floods destroyed two chemical plant warehouses in Jilin City in the province last Wednesday.
Torrents carried the barrels into the Songhua River, raising fears of contamination.
However, the barrels were intercepted after more than 12,000 soldiers, armed police, emergency workers and local residents in Jilin fanned out along the Songhua River's banks to collect the barrels, working around the clock, officials said.
One soldier, Guan Xizhi, was swept away by flood waters while retrieving barrels on Friday near Hadashan Dam in Songyuan City and his body was recovered on Saturday, military authorities said yesterday.
The 1,900 kilometer Songhua is the largest tributary for the Heilong River, which in places traces the China-Russia border. The river is a source of drinking water for cities in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.
The incident revived memories of an explosion in 2005 at a petrochemical plant in Jilin. The accident contaminated the Songhua River and left 3.8 million people in Heilonjiang's capital city of Harbin without drinking water for four days.
In a similar accident on Friday, 1,500 sealed drums containing oil, resin and fertilizer sunk in floodwaters in the central China city of Wuhan on the Yangtze River.
But all the drums had been recovered and the water quality of the Yangtze was not affected, officials said.
Floods and rain-triggered landslides have left more than 100 people dead or missing in Jilin Province over the past few days, officials said.
About 37,000 houses collapsed and 125,000 others were damaged while 592,000 residents had been evacuated, the provincial civil affairs department said yesterday.
Last Wednesday, torrential rain pounded large parts of Jilin.
In the hardest-hit areas, flash floods cut roads, isolated villages and disrupted communications and water supplies, while the province's reservoirs swelled to critical levels.
Floods washed away 70 houses in a village in Antu County while 570 families were forced to leave their homes after a mountain valley was submerged under 20 meters of water.
Soldiers managed to reach the isolated town of Liangjiang on Saturday night and helped 10,000 residents evacuate.
Weather forecasters say heavy rains will continue until Wednesday.
Yesterday, seven of 18 large dams in the province had water levels exceeding danger levels.
In China's western-most Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, recent downpours and melted snow pushed water levels in the region's 13 key rivers over the danger lines.
After a one-day delay due to the weather, helicopters yesterday delivered relief goods to the hardest-hit mountainous areas in Aksu Prefecture and rescued about 118 of the 1,000 people trapped there.
The barrels were retrieved within the borders of Jilin Province and water quality tests show that the Songhua River, a major drinking source for millions in the region, has not been contaminated, said officials with the provincial government.
A total of 3,662 barrels filled with highly explosive chemicals and 3,476 empty barrels were swept into the Wende River, a tributary of Songhua, after floods destroyed two chemical plant warehouses in Jilin City in the province last Wednesday.
Torrents carried the barrels into the Songhua River, raising fears of contamination.
However, the barrels were intercepted after more than 12,000 soldiers, armed police, emergency workers and local residents in Jilin fanned out along the Songhua River's banks to collect the barrels, working around the clock, officials said.
One soldier, Guan Xizhi, was swept away by flood waters while retrieving barrels on Friday near Hadashan Dam in Songyuan City and his body was recovered on Saturday, military authorities said yesterday.
The 1,900 kilometer Songhua is the largest tributary for the Heilong River, which in places traces the China-Russia border. The river is a source of drinking water for cities in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.
The incident revived memories of an explosion in 2005 at a petrochemical plant in Jilin. The accident contaminated the Songhua River and left 3.8 million people in Heilonjiang's capital city of Harbin without drinking water for four days.
In a similar accident on Friday, 1,500 sealed drums containing oil, resin and fertilizer sunk in floodwaters in the central China city of Wuhan on the Yangtze River.
But all the drums had been recovered and the water quality of the Yangtze was not affected, officials said.
Floods and rain-triggered landslides have left more than 100 people dead or missing in Jilin Province over the past few days, officials said.
About 37,000 houses collapsed and 125,000 others were damaged while 592,000 residents had been evacuated, the provincial civil affairs department said yesterday.
Last Wednesday, torrential rain pounded large parts of Jilin.
In the hardest-hit areas, flash floods cut roads, isolated villages and disrupted communications and water supplies, while the province's reservoirs swelled to critical levels.
Floods washed away 70 houses in a village in Antu County while 570 families were forced to leave their homes after a mountain valley was submerged under 20 meters of water.
Soldiers managed to reach the isolated town of Liangjiang on Saturday night and helped 10,000 residents evacuate.
Weather forecasters say heavy rains will continue until Wednesday.
Yesterday, seven of 18 large dams in the province had water levels exceeding danger levels.
In China's western-most Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, recent downpours and melted snow pushed water levels in the region's 13 key rivers over the danger lines.
After a one-day delay due to the weather, helicopters yesterday delivered relief goods to the hardest-hit mountainous areas in Aksu Prefecture and rescued about 118 of the 1,000 people trapped there.
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