VLADIVOSTOK, November 28 (RIA Novosti, Veronika Perminova) - A group of Russian experts flew to the city of Harbin in northeast China Monday to check pollution levels in the Songhua River following an explosion at a petrochemical plant that dumped 100 tons of toxic chemicals into the river November 13, a local official said.
The experts will check on the advance of a toxic spill that is moving toward the Amur River and discuss assistance in the further monitoring of the situation with Chinese authorities.
According to current data, the spill passed Harbin Sunday and the concentration of nitrobenzene in the Songhua was 15 times higher than the accepted norm.
"The spill is expected to reach the Amur on December 6-8," a local Emergencies Ministry official said. "It could appear near Khabarovsk [a city in Russia's Far East] three days after that, or, approximately, on December 9-11."
Yury Darman, the director of the Far Eastern office of the World Wildlife Foundation, said Chinese authorities should have asked for assistance immediately after the accident in order to localize the pollution while the spill was still moving along the Songhua.
"If [China] had asked Russia's Emergencies Ministry and UNESCO for help in time, the situation would have been much better," he said. "Now, we have to worry about the long-term outcome of the accident."
Experts are checking the pollution levels in the Amur near Khabarovsk twice daily. City authorities mobilized special equipment to ensure the steady supply of potable water for local residents.
