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  Channel NewsAsia 25 Dec 05
Toxic slick no danger to marine life: experts

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia : Experts voiced optimism that a toxic slick flowing down the Amur river in Russia's Far East region from China would not pose a danger to marine life when it reaches the sea.

"The concentration of dangerous elements would be so insignificant by the time the river carries it into the sea, that it would be simply undetectable for the fish," said the chief of the Pacific fish industry research institute's department in the city of Khabarovsk, German Novomodny.

"Even in spring, when the benzene now frozen in ice and nitrobenzene which now sinks to the bottom would get into the river, this will not poison the sea fauna," Novomodny said on Sunday.

The spill was caused by an explosion at a chemical factory in China on November 13 that spewed 100 tonnes of benzene, a known carcinogen, into the Songhua river, a tributary of the Amur which runs along the Russia-Chinese border before entering Russian territory above Khabarovsk.

On Thursday, the front edge of the slick reached Khabarovsk, home to some 600,000 people. The regional emergency situations ministry said Sunday the front was now 50 kilometres downstream from the city. It said the maximum pollution zone is due to pass Khabarovsk Sunday, and the slick would completely pass the port city by Tuesday.

Levels of nitrobenzene in Khabarovsk's pumping plants are within acceptable levels, the city's experts said. The authorities had decided there was no danger to people, and mobile labs monitoring the river would be re-located down river to Amursk, the next large city the slick would pass.

Much of the benzene that originally entered the river is long since thought by experts to have evaporated.

But nitrobenzene, an oily, colourless or pale yellow liquid with a characteristic smell of bitter almonds whose effects on people range widely from drowsiness to death and which can effect fertility and liver functions, could still be present in high quantities.

The slick is due to reach the next major town on the river, Komsomolsk-na-Amure, and its 400,000 inhabitants on January 5 and then flow into the Okhotsk sea. - AFP/de
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