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Saturday November 26, 2005 5:46 PM AP Photo XIN108 By JOE McDONALD Associated Press Writer HARBIN, China (AP) - Premier Wen Jiabao visited this city in China's northeast Saturday and expressed concern for the 3.8 million residents enduring a fourth day without running water while they wait for a spill of toxic benzene in a nearby river to pass. The government warned residents that water supplies, suspended to protect the city after a chemical plant explosion, would not resume until 11 p.m. Sunday, a full day later than initially planned. China has been criticized by environmentalists for its slow response...

About 100 tons of dangerous chemicals equivalent to 10 tanker-truck loads was spewed into the Songhua River, which supplies water to Harbin, the nation's environment watchdog disclosed yesterday. Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), told a press conference in Beijing that Jilin Petrochemical Corporation, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), "should be responsible" for the leak of benzene and its derivatives following an explosion at a chemical plant. The plant, on the upper reaches of the river in Jilin Province, earlier denied any connection between the contaminated water and the explosion on November 13,...

Thursday November 24, 4:27 PM 80-kilometer slick flows into China's Harbin city HARBIN, China (AFP) - An 80-kilometer-long (48-mile) slick of highly toxic benzene flowed along the icy Songhua river into one of China's biggest cities, contaminating water supplies for up to four million people. The carcinogenic chemical reached the outskirts of Harbin, capital of China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, about 5:00 am on Thursday, authorities said. Although water supplies were cut off about 30 hours before the poisoned water reached the city and there were no reports of people being contaminated, the environmental impact of the potential disaster was still...