MOSCOW, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Greenpeace said Wednesday it had asked its Chinese counterparts for additional information on the November 13 explosion at the Jilin chemical plant in northeastern China. The accident occurred only a few hundred meters from the Sungari River, raising fears of water supply contamination.
The Sungari, a tributary of the Amur River, is the main source of fresh water for the nearby Chinese city of Harbin and for Russia's Khabarovsk Territory.
Alexei Kiselev, coordinator for Greenpeace's "toxic program," said the organization still had no reliable information on what had really happened at the Jilin plant, and therefore found it difficult to assess how much of an environmental hazard the accident might be for Khabarovsk.
Russia's Federal Control Office for the Use of Natural Resources said in a press release Wednesday that the lack of data on the composition of the chemicals that had leaked into the Sungari River as a result of the Jilin blast made it harder for Russian agencies to prevent fallout for the Khabarovsk community. It asked the Foreign Ministry to request that Chinese authorities provide detailed information on the leak.
Fears of contamination caused Harbin authorities to suspend water supplies to the city Tuesday.
