Shanghai daily, heute
Jilin reports 7,000 chemical buckets in river
EMERGENCY workers discovered that more than 7,000 chemical buckets had been washed into a major river in northeast China, six times more than yesterday's initial findings, authorities said today.
Among them 3,000 buckets contained chemicals, about 170 kilograms each, and the other 4,000 buckets were empty, government officials told a press conference held this morning in Jilin City, Jilin Province.
The accident occurred around 10am in Yongji County, in Jilin City, after rain-triggered floodwaters swept the containers into the Songhua River, said the city's publicity authority. About 400 buckets had been recovered
Some of the containers, from a local chemical plant, contained Trimethyl chloro silicane, a colorless flammable liquid with a pungent odor, said the department.
The chemical would give off hydrochloric acid after reacting with water, said experts.
Emergency workers have set up eight blocking belts and recovered nearly 200 buckets, said a spokesman for the provincial government.
A Xinhua reporter in the city saw dozens of containers floating on the river and smelled a "strange" odor.
"I saw a large number of iron buckets, blue or black in color, floating on the river along with much rubbish," a policeman who patrolled along a section of the river in Jilin City said in a phone interview. He asked not to be identified.
A resident surnamed Xu in Changyi District, Jilin City, said the water supply of his community had been suspended, and the bottled drinking water in nearby supermarkets nearly sold out.
Emergency workers have been trying to recover the containers and local environmental protection authorities were closely monitoring the water quality of the river.
Further details, such as if the river was contaminated and whether containers were sealed, were not available.
"We will respond immediately if any contamination is discovered," said Chi Xiaode, director of the environmental supervision bureau in the neighboring Heilongjiang Province, located further downstream.
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