Another Toxic Spill Darkens China’s Rivers
More than a million people in a southern China have been warned not to drink tap water after a factory dumped poisonous cadmium into the water supply.
Dangerous levels of cadmium, a carcinogenic metal widely used in batteries, were found earlier this week in the Beijiang River near the city of Shaoguan, a city of 500,000 people in China’s heavily industrialised Guangdong province, after leaking from a zinc smelting factory.
The city of Yingde was on high alert following the latest spill at the smelter in Shaoguan, some 90km (55 miles) upstream, China’s Xinhua news agency said.
Cadmium is a dangerous metal:
- chemical used in batteries
- exposure can cause liver and kidney damage
- affects central nervous and immune systems
- leads to bone disease
- carcinogenic
According to Shanghai television, the source of the cadmium leak was a zinc smelting plant that belongs to the Shenzhen Zhongjin Lingnan Non-ferrous Metal Co. Ltd, China’s third largest zinc company. The website of the Shaoguan Smelter says that the factory produces 240,000 tonnes of zinc and lead every year and produces both 5in and 8in cadmium ingots.
Xinhua reported that local officials were attempting to dilute the levels of cadmium, currently ten times above what is safe, by adding more than 70 million cubic meters of water to the Beijiang River, which joins the Pearl River, one of China’s great rivers, further downstream.
Source: The Times Online, BBC, Xinhua.
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