China Promises Help to Russia as Toxic Spill Nears
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DALIANHE, China — Beijing promised to send filtering materials to Russia, where residents stocked up on bottled water as a chemical spill continued down China’s Songhua River.
Five more Chinese cities prepared to stop drawing water from the river.
The spill of benzene and other materials from a Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion has disrupted life for millions of Chinese and tested Beijing’s ties with Moscow.
China plans to send 150 tons of activated charcoal for use in filtering drinking water, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
Officials have sent millions of bottles of drinking water and fleets of water trucks to communities on the Songhua whose water supplies have been cut off as the spill passed.
The Songhua flows into the Heilong River, which becomes the Amur in Russia.
The spill is expected to hit Khabarovsk, a border city of 580,000, by about Dec. 15, monitoring officials said.
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