MOSCOW, December 13 (RIA Novosti) - The toxic slick traveling down China's Songhua River will reach the Amur River December 15 and the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk December 20-22, the Russian hydrometeorological center said Tuesday.
The center said the maximum permissible concentration level of nitrobenzene would be half the amount recorded where the Songhua feeds into the Amur by the time the slick reached Khabarovsk.
The reason for the rapid advancement of the slick is that water from Chinese reservoirs has been poured into the Songhua in large quantities to dilute the spill of benzene and other toxic chemicals following a November 13 explosion at a petrochemicals plant in northeastern China.
Khabarovsk's food, health, education, transportation and communications authorities said earlier that necessary measures had been taken to reduce the hazardous spill's effect on the community and the ecosystem.
