New monitoring mission as Chinese slick moves closer to Russia

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2005

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AFP) — A joint Russian-Chinese monitoring mission was inaugurated as a toxic chemical spill in China's Songhua River came within 100 kilometres (62 miles) of Russia's Amur River.

The joint monitoring of water samples on both sides of the Russian-Chinese border is the latest attempt to limit risks posed by the benzene and nitrobenzene slick that entered China's Songhua River after a factory accident on November 13 and is now approaching the Amur.

"Forecasts about the arrival of the spill ... are updated daily. The worst of the pollution should come on December 19, with some earlier currents, possibly containing higher concentrations, arriving two or three days earlier," the emergency situations ministry for the Russian far east said, quoting...