China looks like the place to be lol check this one out
www.theaustralian.com.au
Poisoned river starts China panic Correspondents in Harbin November 25, 2005
AN 80km-long slick of toxic chemicals surged down a river into one of China's biggest cities yesterday, leaving up to 9 million people without water and sparking a state of emergency in neighbouring Russia.
The slick of the carcinogen benzene, an industrial solvent and component of petrol, poured into the outskirts of Harbin, on the Songhua River, the capital of China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
The pollution of the major river was 100 times above safety levels, health officials said.
The water contamination was caused by a massive explosion at a PetroChina benzene factory in neighbouring Jilin province, 380km from Harbin up the Songhua, on November 13.
The Chinese Government acknowledged the environmental disaster on Wednesday, following days of rumours that led to panic buying and hoarding of water and food supplies in Harbin.
Harbin, which is highly dependent on the 1897km Songhua River for its water supplies, has about 3.8 million urban residents and a total population of about 9 million.
It was still unclear how the environmental disaster had affected Songyuan and Zhaoyuan, two other major cities that are also dependent on the Songhua for water.
Frightened residents of Harbin jammed airports and stations, trying to escape the city after officials cut off the water for at least four days from midnight on Tuesday. The authorities put on extra flights out of the city.
"Everyone wants to leave Harbin and it is very difficult to buy tickets," one factory manager said yesterday.
Supermarket shelves in the city were swept bare of bottled water and soft drinks as citizens stocked up for the shortage. Schools cancelled classes until next week.
The Government finally disclosed the reason for halting the water supply to stop the rumours that fuelled the panic buying.
"The recent explosion of two benzene processing towers at PetroChina's Jilin Petroleum and Chemical Company could end up polluting waters in the Songhua river," Harbin Communist Party secretary Du Yuxin said.
Residents reported seeing dead fish on the river's banks. The Songhua flows north from Jilin province, through Harbin and into Russia.
Authorities in Russia's far eastern Khabarovsk region, bordering China, declared a state of emergency yesterday, fearing massive water pollution. The Songhua (which is called the Sungari in Russia) is the main source of drinking water for the Russian city of Khabarovsk, home to 600,000 residents, just across the Chinese border.
The benzene slick was expected to reach Russia between today and Monday, and Khabarovsk by early next month, Russian officials said.
The Songhua is a tributary of the Amur river, marking the border between Russia and China. Russian scientists started monitoring water quality in the Amur, which provides drinking water for more than 1.5million people in the Khabarovsk region.
In China, the provincial government has told Harbin residents to stay away from the river to avoid possible exposure to airborne contaminants coming from the water. The State Environmental Protection Administration said water in some parts of the Songhua had recorded benzene more than 100 times above safety levels.
The director of the Environment and Resources Institute of Jilin University, Zhang Lanying, told the China Daily: "Massive amounts of benzene can lead to the disorder of blood cells - in other words, leukaemia."
Feelings among Harbin residents seemed to be shifting from panic to anxious resignation and anger. Most shops and restaurants remained open, although business was generally slow.
Provincial Governor Zhang Zuoji promised to be the first to drink tap water when the supplies were restored. "After four days, I'll have the first drop," he said. Chinese people usually boil tap water before drinking it, even when pollution is not an issue.
Although the state-controlled media played down the benzene spill, Lester Brown, the head of the US-based Earth Policy Institute likened the situation in Harbin to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the US. "This might be the water equivalent to the Chinese Government that Katrina was to the US," Dr Brown told AFP yesterday.
"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 4million people without water."
The ordeal of Harbin's residents highlights the state of China's water supplies. The country's 1.3billion people and its factories and farms compete for scarce supplies, and the Government says all major rivers are dangerously polluted.
AFP, Reuters,/i>
SGX Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
