MOSCOW, December 2 (RIA Novosti) - A committee on emergency situations in the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk has decided to block off a tributary of the Amur River in order to stop polluted water from China from entering the local water supply system, the Natural Resources Ministry said Friday.
"During its December 1 meeting, the committee decided to block off the Kazakevich tributary of the Amur River [60 km from Khabarovsk]," the ministry said in a statement.
The committee has also decided to send 5-6 metric tons of absorbent carbon to the cities of Amursk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur, located north along the Amur.
The committee is planning to meet again December 3 to discuss shipping water to the area by trucks, the ministry said.
The toxic waters that are slowly moving along the Amur toward Khabarovsk were dumped into an Amur tributary November 13 by an accident at a Chinese petrochemical plant. About 100 metric tons of benzene were released into the river.
