City delayed reporting pollution

The Chifeng city government in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region is stepping up investigations into tainted drinking water that made at least 2,622 residents ill and hospitalized 59 others, a senior official said yesterday.

Inspectors are looking into reports of a delay in alerting residents of the polluted water supply, as well as investigating any other cause of the contamination other than the heavy rainfall, Gao Xihua, secretary-general of the local government, told China Daily.

"Discharge from septic tanks or chemical factories are possible causes in this case, but investigations are ongoing," Gao said, adding that the diarrhea-causing bacteria colon bacillus is one of the main contaminants of the water.