Russia request details from China on Sungari chemicals spill.

29/7 Tass 164

MOSCOW, July 29 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Ministry of Natural
Resources placed an official inquiry with China demanding detailed
information on the emergency situation in the Jilin province, in which
containers with poisonous chemicals had been washed away into the Sungari
river.
The inquiry was placed at the instruction of Minister of Natural
Resources Yuri Trutnev, the Ministry's press service said.
The accident occurred in Jilin, Yongji Country, on Wednesday.
Preliminary reports said barrels with 510 tons of chemicals were washed
down the Sungari (the right tributary of the Amur river).
"The information about the accident has special significance for
Russia, because water flows move from China to Russia. The Russian
Ministry of Natural Resources requested an estimate of the possible
negative influence of the environmental pollution," the press service said.
In addition, the Ministry ordered its subordinate agencies - the
Federal Agency for Water Resources, the Federal Service for Supervision of
Nature Resources and the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and
Environmental Monitoring to step up the monitoring of the environment.
The waters tainted by the chemicals are expected to reach the mouth of
the Sungari near the Russian border on August 4. There have been no
reports that the barrels have been leaking chemicals, the Russian
Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources said it signed a memorandum
with the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2008, which
commits the signatories to inform each other in case of the situations
posing environmental threats.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the quality of the
Sungari water remains unchanged.
"The far eastern regional centre of the Emergency Situations Ministry
received an answer to the inquiry sent to the Chinese consulate general in
Khabarovsk in connection with the accident in the province of Jilin in
north-western China, where barrels with chemicals were washed down the
Sungari river (a tributary of the Amur) as a result of flood. The Jilin
authorities are taking all the necessary measurers to eliminate the
aftermath of the accident," it said.
Several interception lines have been set downstream the Sungari, and
environmental monitoring has been launched.
"According to the centre for investigations into environmental
incidents under the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection, there
have been no changes in the quality of the water in the river at present,"
the far eastern regional centre of the Russian Emergency Situations
Ministry said.
The Russian Roshydromet and Rospoterbnadzor agencies said daily
monitoring had not revealed any deviations from the permissible content of
harmful substances in the Amur in the past few days.
"Nevertheless, additional monitoring of the condition of the Amur
water has begun," it added.
By now, China reportedly lost track of an overwhelming majority of the
barrels with chemicals washed down the Sungari. So far, they have been
able to retrieve 400 of 7,000 barrels. There is no accurate information on
whether the barrels are full with chemicals or empty. It is known that
3,000 barrels contain dangerous chemicals -- 170 kilograms of
trimethylchlorosilane and hexamethyldisilazane, which are caustic
flammable liquids.
The barrels were washed into the river on Wednesday morning, Moscow
time. Specialists said they are unlikely to be carried as far as the Amur
and that most likely they drowned. However, if they leak, the poisonous
chemicals will certainly be carried downstream to the Amur.
It is not the first case of China's polluting the Amur waters. In
November 2005, more than 100 tons of benzene were washed into the Sungari
after an accident at a Jilin chemical plant. It was the largest
environmental disaster. On January 17, 2010, an explosion occurred at a
Jilin chemical plant which emitted chemical gases into the atmosphere.
-0-myz


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