Harbin, China

Haven't posted on this until now, but you have got to be kidding me??

HARBIN, China (AP) - Premier Wen Jiabao visited this city in China's northeast Saturday and expressed concern for the 3.8 million residents enduring a fourth day without running water while they wait for a spill of toxic benzene in a nearby river to pass.

The government warned residents that water supplies, suspended to protect the city after a chemical plant explosion, would not resume until 11 p.m. Sunday, a full day later than initially planned.

China has been criticized by environmentalists for its slow response to the disaster and is under pressure from neighboring Russia and the United Nations to release more information about the spill.

Wait for it to pass? Like, how long? Does anyone seriously believe that water is going to be safe to drink again anytime soon? Oh, and sorry for the little accident we had in your pool, Russia.

On Saturday, China made a rare public apology to Moscow for any harm that may be caused as the poisonous benzene headed downstream toward a far eastern Russian city.

China's economic boom has devastated the country environmentally with over 70% of its rivers already polluted. And they have been playing the information game on this incident since the start. I can only imagine what the cancer rates are going to be in this area over the next two generations, or so.

Chinese reporters covering the crisis in Harbin said editors had advised them some of their reports went too far, however, and that they were expected to take the lead from Xinhua.

Comments

[TheAlamo]

China's economic boom has devastated the country environmentally with over 70% of its rivers already polluted. And they have been playing the information game on this incident since the start. I can only imagine what the cancer rates are going to be in this area over the next two generations, or so.

That's because the "economic boom" is only a boom to it's criminal masters. If they had a free society, and private ownership, and the people policed themselves from the local level on up (like it was once upon a time here) the pollution would be eliminated, people would thrive, and criminals would either be dead or in jail instead of running the "government."
Liberty will usually sovle most delimmas.

[cindi in pa]

I know a person that has a leather manufacturing plant in China. He often commented about the environmental factors in China that allowes him to operate there at a far less expense than he would have to in the USA. What he told me was companies are located outside of any major city in China. Mostly in poor areas, the chemical run offs from such companies are not under any government standards. One of the biggest poluters in China are plants that manafacture MSG, yeah the stuff found in many foods in America and around the globe. The run off of that additave is a killer. Many villages in China are suffering because of MSG run off, and nobody is paying attention. As a result, cancer is the number one killer.