In an event echoing a near environmental disaster last November, Chinese media said Wednesday that on August 20 the Jilin chemical plant discharged untreated industrial waste containing highly toxic benzene derivatives into the Songhua River, a tributary of the Amur River, which passes through the Khabarovsk Territory in Russia.
"Chinese authorities said they prevented a benzene spill from entering the Songhua River; therefore there is no threat to the Amur," the diplomat said, adding that China claimed it has full control over the situation.
China said it provided Russia with the detailed chemical composition of a toxic slick 5 kilometers (3.5 miles) long, which never entered the Amur tributary.
A blast at the plant belonging to the Jilin Petroleum and Chemical Company in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang on November 13, 2005, caused 100 metric tons of potentially lethal benzene to spill into the Songhua. The spill came close to creating an environmental catastrophe in the Russian Far East as a massive slick passed along the Amur.
China failed to inform Russia until days after the incident.
