KHABAROVSK, December 22 (RIA Novosti) - The massive toxic slick in the Amur River containing potentially lethal benzene reached the suburbs of the city of Khabarovsk at 1:00 p.m. Moscow time (10:00 a.m. GMT) Thursday, the regional Emergency Situations Ministry said.
The ministry said the slick, caused by a November 13 explosion at a Chinese petrochemical plant that dumped about 100 metric tons of toxic chemicals into an Amur tributary, could reach the city, home to 600,000, in the next half hour.
Experts said the slick, which is 190 km (118 miles) long, is expected to move past the city of Khabarovsk by December 25 and could reach the cities of Amursk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur on January 2. The benzene concentration did not exceed 0.4% of maximum allowable levels, experts added.
