Millions without water after China toxic spill

Millions of people in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin endured a third day without tap water today as fears of contaminated…

Millions of people in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin endured a third day without tap water today as fears of contaminated river water hit a second densely populated area in the country's southwest.

Officials said they expected a 80-kilometre-long toxic spill on the Songhua river to flow past Harbin, a city of nine million and the capital of Heilongjiang province, by tomorrow.

An explosion 12 days ago at a petrochemical factory upstream poured an estimated 100 tonnes of benzene and other poisonous substances into the Songhua from which Harbin pumps its water.

The city's water company turned off the taps at midnight on Tuesday, and residents are getting by on stockpiled reserves and bottled water.

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Toxins carried in the river water flowing through Harbin on Friday were more than 30 times officially acceptable levels, but experts said the poisons should be diluted downstream where the Songhua converges with other rivers.

More than 300 residents of Niujiadian village and Gou island in Harbin had to be evacuated before the slick passed by, the Life Dailysaid.

Two reservoirs upstream discharged an unusually large volume of water into the river to dilute the spill, the website of the Harbin city government said.

About 1,000 soldiers and paramilitary police have been deployed at several water plants to install charcoal filters that can more effectively absorb nitrobenzene, the main pollutant, it said.

In the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, home to 32 million people, an explosion at a chemical plant this week forced evacuation of 6,000 riverside residents amid fears of benzene contamination, the Southern Metropolis Dailyreported.

Environmental protection officials went from house to house in Dianjiang county warning residents not to use water from a nearby river, the daily said.