The Xinhua news agency reported the death of three people, and it later transpired that eight had been poisoned. This is all China's main news agency said. Not a word about the causes or scale of the incident or the environmental damage involved.
According to an unofficial report, the chemical leak occurred at a pulp-and-paper plant in the town of Qiqihar. It lies only 250 miles (400 kilometers) up the Nin River, a major tributary of the Songhua River, which flows into Russia.
A local administration source in China earlier said the leak was caused by the explosion of a WWII bomb found by peasants.
Russians living across the border are worried, because the Songhua River flows into the Amur. If the spillage reaches the confluence point, it will be the second environmental disaster of this scale in the past few years.
The Chinese authorities' silence about the incident in Qiqihar "is a violation of an agreement signed between the [Russian] Natural Resources Ministry and China's Environmental Committee," said Minister Yury Trutnev.
The ministry earlier sent a note to China requesting official information as to the location, the cause of the incident and the type of chemicals that could have leaked into the surrounding area.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has also expressed its concern.
China is a difficult neighbor when it comes to the environment. It is growing rapidly and building modern industries, but obsolete equipment cannot be replaced or environmental programs launched overnight.
In November 2005 an explosion at a plant owned by the Jilin Petroleum and Chemical Company caused 100 tons of potentially lethal benzene to spill into the Songhua River. The spillage caused substantial environmental damage in Russia's Far East, as a huge slick of chemicals was carried down the Amur.
Another similar incident occurred a year later, and experts say this is only the beginning.
Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, director of the Russian Institute of Water Problems, said China had neglected environmental problems for too long, and therefore would not be able to restore order soon.
After these two incidents, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry and China drafted and signed, at the end of January 2008, the first bilateral agreement on the rational use and protection of trans-border waters.
China has allocated 13.5 billion yuan, or about $1.6 billion, for cleaning up the Songhua River and its banks. It has also agreed to coordinate methods for assessing the negative impact of such accidents and now allows Russian specialists to inspect the plants responsible for polluting the environment.
One of the key clauses in the agreement provides for mutual information exchange about industrial accidents. However, China again resorted to its "keep-mum" tactic when the explosion shook Qiqihar, implying that the local authorities had not known about the agreement with Russia.
Russian experts have established that the gas leak contained phosgene, a colorless, volatile liquid that is highly poisonous. It gained notoriety as a chemical weapon during WWI. There is no known antidote.
Phosgene is also used in organic synthesis and in making dyes.
The Typhoon analytical center at the Russian weather service in Obninsk near Moscow has calculated the possible movement of a phosgene cloud with an explosion altitude of 500, 1,500 or 3,000 meters northward, eastward or southeastward.
They have concluded that the poisonous cloud could reach Russia two or three days after the explosion.
The Chinese inspectors working at the explosion site claim that the incident has not damaged the environment. The Russian ministries of foreign affairs and emergencies also say there is no danger to people or the environment in the Russian regions bordering on China.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
