VLADIVOSTOK, December 2 (RIA Novosti, Veronika Perminova) - China is set to supply Russia with rapid-analysis equipment to test samples from the Amur River as a 70-mile slick of polluted water from its Chinese tributary, the Songhua, approaches the Russian city of Khabarovsk, a spokesman for the Russian president's envoy to the Far Eastern District said Friday.
A deputy presidential envoy to the district, Yury Averyanov, met with the Chinese consul in Khabarovsk Friday. The Chinese diplomat said his country would do everything possible to minimize effects of the toxic spill from a Chinese petrochemical plant for Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region and Khabarovsk Territory, where the Amur, one of the world's biggest 10 rivers, runs for almost 2,000 miles.
Chinese authorities have given permission to Russian experts to test samples from the Songhua in China and send data to Russia via satellite. According to Russian hydrometeorology experts, the chemical spill could reach Khabarovsk, which is home to about 600,000 people, within two weeks.
The toxic slick appeared after an explosion at a Chinese petrochemical plant on November 13 dumped about 100 metric tons of benzene in the Songhua.
