LEAD: China apologizes to Russia over river contamination

Asian Economic News, Nov 28, 2005

BEIJING, Nov. 26 Kyodo

(EDS: CHANGING DATELINE & UPDATING WITH PREMIER'S VISIT TO HARBIN, XINHUA REPORT OF LI-RAZOV MEETING)

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing formally apologized to Russia on Saturday over the contamination of shared river water following a chemical plant blast in China, the two countries' main news agencies reported.

Li, in a meeting with Russian Ambassador to China Sergei Razov, expressed his government's ''regret over the possible harms to be done to the Russian people by the major environmental pollution accident,'' China's Xinhua News Agency reported.

Razov was told that China is willing to help Russia tackle consequences of the huge toxic chemical discharge into the river known in Russia as the Sungari and in China as the Songhua, which was caused by a Nov. 13 explosion at a petrochemical plant in China's northeastern province of Jilin.

The discharge of the carcinogenic chemicals benzene and nitrobenzen into the river ''is fraught with enormous damage to the natural environment both of China and Russia,'' Li was quoted as saying by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency.

According to Itar-Tass, Li said that Chinese specialists estimate the contaminated water will reach the Amur, a border river between the two countries, by Dec. 8 or 9 and will come close to the Russian city of Khabarovsk by Dec. 21.

The 1,900-km Sungari is the chief tributary of the Amur, which China calls the Heilongjiang.

Xinhua reported that China has been regularly informing its neighbor of details relating to the accident, including pollutant density and the location of polluted stretches, and that the two sides have agreed to open up a hot line between their environmental departments.

It quoted Li as saying China has blocked the discharging site of the pollutants into the river, redoubled the downward flow of the upstream hydropower stations and sped up the diluent speed in an effort to alleviate the impact of the water pollution.

''China will cope with this incident conscientiously and responsibly, and go on informing the Russian side of the relevant information periodically and at all times,'' the foreign minister said, while invoking the spirit of the two countries' ''strategic partnership of cooperation.''

According to Xinhua, Razov told Li that the Russian central and local governments are very concerned about the impacts of the disaster, describing it as a ''common challenge'' for Russia and China to confront ''from the strategic point of view of cooperation.''

The Chinese government did not publicly confirm until Wednesday that dangerous levels of carcinogenic chemicals benzene and nitrobenzen had entered the river after the blast at the China National Petroleum Corp.'s Jilin Petrochemical Co.

The confirmation came a day after the northwestern Chinese city of Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province, cut off tap water to its 3.8 million urban residents as a precautionary measure.

Xinhua reported that as of Saturday, the pollution slick, stretching more than 80 km, was flowing past Harbin and was expected to reach the Amur in a matter of 12 days.

Itar-Tass quoted specialists as saying the contaminated water was expected to begin to flow into the Amur on Dec. 8-10, though it would be much diluted by then.

''According to Chinese experts, the concentration of benzene and nitrobenzene was perceptibly reduced over the past several days, and now their concentration exceeds the normal level only by two to four times,'' the Russian news agency said.

But it said that while Russia uses world standards of the maximum permissible concentration of benzene, the standards used in China are reduced by three to four times.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday arrived in Harbin to inspect the water pollution of the river and the public water supply system, Xinhua reported.