Maintaining frequent contact and information reporting, China and Russia, the neighbors along the Heilongjiang River, have kept calm in dealing with the recent water pollution.

China declared Thursday it would provide tools testing the water quality and activated carbon for the Russian border city of Khabarovsk and the Jewish autonomous province, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a regular press conference.

Before this, China had already offered the Russian Embassy to China with a list of pollutants in the Songhua River and equipment to monitor benzene concentration. Working groups including Chinese and Russian experts got down to work on the pollution as early as on Nov. 22.

A blast at a northeast China's chemical plant on Nov. 13 caused an 80-kilometer-long slick of benzene in the Songhua River, which flows through China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces and then into Russia's far east region.

The Chinese government has taken measures to control the spread of the pollution soon after the accident happened. Premier Wen Jiabao went to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, to inspect the pollution of the Songhua River and local public water supply system. A working team and experts sent by the State Council also arrived in the city to guide the anti-pollution efforts.

Although the pollution would affect Russia 14 days after the occurrence of the accident, according to the calculation of water-flow speed, China has been trying its best as early as possible to minimize the impact the contamination might have on Russia's far east region.

China began to provide Russia with relevant information on November 22. Since last Thursday, China has begun to inform Russia daily of its monitoring results. A hotline was set up between the environmental departments of the two countries.

In order to limit the possible bad consequences, China blocked the discharging site of the pollutants into the river, redoubled the downward flow of water from the upstream hydropower stations and sped up the dilution speed to avoid the pollution from spreading.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Saturday apologized for the trouble to Russia when meeting Russian Ambassador to China Sergey Razov, and informed him of the situation of the river's pollution and measures adopted by the Chinese government to tackle the issue.

Russia expressed satisfaction to China's sincerity in controlling the river pollution, saying it is indeed necessary to strengthen environmental cooperation between the two neighbors.

The experts of the two countries now are working jointly on the relevant drafts, and a sub-committee on environmental cooperation is expected to be established within the framework of the prime ministers' regular meeting.

A Russian environment inspection group is in Harbin to investigate the latest conditions of the Songhua River. Chinese and Russian experts shared various lab test results and data on the flow of the chemicals downstream.

China has also informed the United Nations Environment Program and the United Nations Development Program of the details of the pollution accident as well as the concrete measures put in place.

Xie Zhenhua, director of the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), Wednesday called for efforts from the local governments to reduce the pollutant concentration and confine the pollution in China.

"Relevant departments must take effective measures to monitor and control the pollution, to assess and recover the ecological conditions, with a sense of responsibility for the Chinese and Russian peoples and local ecological environment," he said.

Source: Xinhua