Five more cities embattled by water stoppage
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-02 14:42

Beijing tried to ease strains with Moscow over a river-borne toxic spill flowing toward Russia by promising to send filtering materials, while five more Chinese cities prepared to stop drawing water from the river.

On the Russian side, residents stocked up on bottled water and an official warned that a lack of running water could threaten supplies of heat in the dead of winter.

The spill of benzene into the Songhua River from a Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion has disrupted life for millions of Chinese and tested Beijing's ties with Moscow, a key diplomatic partner and source of much-needed oil.

"The Chinese side has decided to provide the Russian side with monitoring devices to rapidly monitor the pollution and is willing to send people to install them," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a briefing in Beijing Thursday.

China also plans to send 150 tons of activated charcoal for use in filtering drinking water, Qin said. He said he didn't know whether the two sides discussed compensation.

The disaster has prompted a massive relief effort at home by Chinese government. 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 Tangyuan, Jiamusi, 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.

"When one person has trouble, eight will lend a hand," read banners on the trucks. Some were from as far away as Harbin, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) to the west.

The Songhua flows into the Heilongjiang River, which becomes the Amur in Russia.

The spill is expected to hit Khabarovsk, a border city of 580,000, by about Dec. 15, according to the Far East Meteorological and Environmental Monitoring Service.

Khabarovsk will stop drawing water from the Amur only in the event of a high concentration of benzene, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, citing Deputy Mayor Andrei Vologzhanin.

Vologzhanin said the city has enough drinking water for 10 days in the event of a shutdown, ITAR-Tass said.