Five more Chinese cities prepared to stop drawing water from the benzene-laden Songhua River yesterday, as the country's top work safety official warned of long-term dangers from the toxin.
In Russia, residents stocked up on bottled water and an official warned that a lack of running water could threaten heat supplies in the dead of winter, as the spill of benzene into the river from a Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion slowly moved toward the border.
Beijing has sought to ease strains with Moscow, a key diplomatic partner and source of much-needed oil, promising to send filtering materials to help reduce the impact from the spill.
PHOTO: AP
Li Yizhong, minister of China's State Administration of Work Safety, said measures taken so far to protect the millions living along the river were only a "partial victory," the local Communist Party newspaper Harbin Daily reported yesterday.
Li, visiting the city of Jiamusi, where the pollution is expected to arrive in the next few days, warned that the slick was getting longer as it flowed downstream through the iced-over Songhua, affecting an ever growing area.
There was no obvious drop in the concentration of pollutants, up to 21 times the allowable standard, the newspaper quoted Li and other officials as saying.
"Cities on the Songhua River need to stay at a high level of alert," Li said.
On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry announced it was sending to Russia pollution monitoring devices and 150 tons of activated charcoal to help filter drinking water. Beijing also offered to send experts to help install it.
The disaster has prompted a massive relief effort at home by China's communist government, which is trying to repair its image after complaints that officials concealed the spill and lied to the public.
Officials have sent millions of bottles of drinking water and fleets of water trucks to communities on the Songhua that have cut off running water as the benzene passed. The biggest was the industrial center of Harbin, where 3.8 million people went without water last week.
Downstream, Dalianhe shut down running water to 26,000 residents on Wednesday.
The cities of Jiamusi, Tangyuan, Huachuan, Fujin and Tongjiang were preparing to stop drawing river water as the slick approached, according to provincial and local officials.
It wasn't immediately clear how many people would be affected or whether those communities could draw on wells or other sources to continue supplying running water.
On Thursday, residents of Dalianhe lined up with jugs and buckets to get drinking water delivered by fire trucks after the government shut down drinking water to its 26,000 people.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS