But the REALLY important story is this one.
100 000 people were evacuated after an explosion in a chemical factory, and now the river is contaminating drinking water in a major city (and next week, the chemicals will reach a Russian city on the coast)
The 50-mile-long patch of water carrying toxic benzene began entering Harbin, a city of 3.8 million people in China's northeast, before dawn, the government said. It was expected to take 40 hours to pass.
"After it passes ... we will have to make efforts to disinfect the water," Shi Zhongxin, director of the city's water bureau, said on state television. He gave no details.
Harbin shut down its water system at midnight Tuesday after a chemical plant explosion Nov. 13 in the nearby city of Jilin spewed toxic benzene into the Songhua River. Jilin is about 120 miles southeast of Harbin.
The announcement of the impending shutdown set off panicked buying of bottled water, soft drinks and milk. Families stocked up by filling bathtubs and buckets....
Sigh...guess ecological disasters don't count if those suffering are not politically correct minorities....or if you can't blame the disaster on Bush....
