officials wait 6 days to tell Harbin about benzene river spill

Dead fish lie in a section of the Songhua River in Jilin, northeast China's Jilin province. The government of Harbin, neighbouring Heilongjiang province, admitted that fears of water contamination following a chemical plant blast in Jinlin on November 13 in the Songhua River, which supplies the city, were behind its four-day water supply cut, state media reported. Picture taken 22 November. REUTERS/CHINA NEWSPHOTO

International Herald Tribune (Paris)
Friday 25 November 2005

China tried to keep
benzene spill secret

By Jim Yardley, The New York Times

HARBIN, China -- The government tried for days to keep secret the threat posed to the nearly four million people of this city by a chemical explosion and benzene leak that has made the water supply unusable, Chinese news accounts revealed Friday.

The reports, including some from the official Xinhua news agency, suggested that officials here and in Jilin Province, where the disaster occurred 380 kilometers, or 235 miles, up the Songhua River, lied or told only part of the story until they had no choice but to admit the truth.

The explosion at the chemical plant occurred on November 13, but factory officials announced only that the accident posed no threat of air pollution. They denied that chemicals had spilled into the river, the main source of water for Harbin and other communities.

A Shanghai newspaper, the News Morning Post, reported that government officials in Jilin told their downstream neighbors in Heilongjiang Province, home of Harbin, that there had been no chemical spill. But Jilin officials finally told their peers in Heilongjiang on November 19 that there was a problem.

The China Youth Daily reported that environmental officials in Jilin -- instead of telling the public -- had tried to dilute the spill with reservoir water.

By Monday, officials in Harbin were preparing to shut down the water supply, but they feared news of the chemical spill would start a panic, the News Morning Post reported. Instead, they announced that they had to cut off the water to do maintenance work on the mains. Rumors then erupted that the government had detected signs of an earthquake.

Enough people panicked that the officials then had to confirm that the explosion had released benzene into the river. But the damage was done.

On Friday, a front-page headline in the Modern Evening Times here stated: "There Will Not Be an Earthquake in Harbin."

"They were trying to lie and get by," said Qi Guangzhong, 64, as he walked along the Songhua River on Friday. "The government wanted to hide this."

The earthquake rumors were just one of the consequences of a government response that was secretive and misleading at a time when China is eager to prove to the world that it is a candid international partner on other important issues, such as containing bird flu.

In the Chinese media and on the Internet, angry people seethed as officials in Jilin Province offered apologies. One citizen has already sued the state-owned chemical company responsible for the spill, state media reported.

China's leaders have tried hard to regain international trust after they tried to conceal the outbreak of the SARS epidemic in 2002. Beijing was then condemned around the world as SARS spread. But it has earned praise from some international health officials for its response to the bird flu problem.

Even so, Hu Shuli, editor of the country's most influential business magazine, Caijing, wrote an editorial that criticized propaganda officials for censoring how the media is allowed to cover bird-flu outbreaks. Since that editorial, coverage of the disease has expanded.

Some people here are critical of the State Environmental Protection Agency, which said Thursday that it would seek criminal penalties against those responsible for the spill.

"It happened on the 13th," said Qi, the man walking along the river on Friday, pointing out that 11 days had passed before the environmental agency spoke out. "Where have they been?"

Qi said residents were immediately suspicious when Harbin officials announced that the water would be stopped for maintenance work on the mains.

He said the timing was too strange: Why would the city do routine work when the sub-zero temperatures of winter are about to begin?

He said his wife and children left three days ago for the countryside; he remained to protect their home.

- 30 -