MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) - The toxic waters traveling down the Russian Far East's biggest river are about 15 km away from the regional center of Khabarovsk, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday.
The slick, containing potentially lethal benzene, is moving at a speed of 2 to 2.5 km/hr and is expected to reach Khabarovsk, which is home to about 600,000 people, in about six hours via the Amur River, the ministry said.
Chinese workers are completing the construction of a dam designed to stop the chemicals, of which 100 metric tons were dumped into the Amur tributary of the Songhua River after a November 13 explosion at a petrochemicals plant in China. The construction of the dam is expected to be finished by 3:00p.m. Moscow time (12:00p.m. GMT).
Current water samples from the Amur near Khabarovsk show chemical concentrations are within the maximum allowable levels.
