vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #532 / Environment / Reading article...

The toxic slick which spilled into the Songhua River tributary in the province of Jilin, northeast China, on Sunday poses no danger to Russia’s Amur River, Head of Khabarovsk’s regional Department for Environment Protection Viktor Bardyuk announced on Friday citing China’s environmental officials.

The official response from China’s Department for Environmental Preservation says the water probes taken at the confluence of the Songhua River and its tributary, where toxic waste was spilled Sunday, revealed no poisonous substances, Ria Novosti reported citing Bardyuk.

Ten cubic meters of industrial waste were dumped into Songhua’s tributary from a chemical plant in Jilin. The information regarding the incident was revealed by Chinese representatives only Thursday.

According to the statement, Bardyuk said, the Chinese urgently reacted by constructing an absorbent dam thus blocking the five-meter spillage from seeping into Songhua, which runs into the Amur River in Russia's Far East.

Currently, the toxic benzene spill is located 14 kilometers off the Songhua River, Deita.ru said.

According to Head of Khabarovsky region’s Department for Emergency Situations Ivan Sych, despite the Chinese assurance that the incident bears no pollution threat neither for Songhua nor Amur, the region’s emergency services are on alert and monitoring the situation, the agency reported.

Last December, the Amur River became contaminated when a toxic slick of chemicals reached it from the Songhua River after an explosion at a petrochemical factory in the Chinese city of Jilin. The explosion resulted in 100 tons of benzene spilling into the Songhua River.