Official blamed for Chinese toxic spill is found hanged

A senior official who tried to cover up the discharge of 100 tons of toxic benzene and nitrobenzene into the Songhua river in north- eastern China is believed to have hanged himself.

Wang Wei, vice-mayor of Jilin City and the local environmental chief, reportedly committed suicide on Tuesday. "I'd heard he'd died at home yesterday. We've heard he hanged himself," a senior city official said yesterday.

Mr Wang had been widely quoted as denying that an explosion on 13 November at a Jilin chemical plant would result in contamination of the Songhua, the main source of drinking water for millions of people in both countries.

"It will not cause large-scale pollution," he told the Chinese media two days after the blast. But, eight days later, the city of Harbin was forced to suspend water supplies to 3.8 million residents after the levels of the carcinogen nitrobenzene in the Songhua were found to be 30 times the maximum safe level. It took a further 10 days for officials to admit publicly that the Songhua had been polluted. The incident caused widespread panic in Harbin, prompting the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, to fly to the city to reassure residents.

The toxic chemicals continue to flow in the river towards Russia.

Mr Wang's apparent suicide came on the same day that China's State Council launched its inquiry into the incident, which has dented public confidence in the authorities and highlighted their reluctance to report bad news, as well as straining relations with Russia, downstream of the polluted water. The Songhua turns into the Amur river when it reaches Russia and Mr Wen has written to his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov, apologising for the spill and confirming China will take full responsibility for the incident.

Li Yizhong, the director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision Administration and head of the inquiry, vowed to punish those responsible for the explosion and the subsequent cover-up.

"Anyone who is found guilty of dereliction of duty will be harshly dealt with," said Mr Li. "People who are found to have provided false information to investigators will be punished severely. Anyone found trying to cover up the cause of the accident and any passive attitude to the investigation are deemed deception and defiance of the law."

Heads have already started to roll. Last week, Xie Zhenhua, the chief of the State Environmental Protection Administration, China's environmental watchdog, became the highest-ranking official to resign after a pollution accident.

The head of the Jilin branch of China National Petroleum Corporation, who operated the chemical plant responsible for the discharge of the benzene, was reported to have been dismissed. The explosion at the plant killed eight people and injured a further 60.

Professor Chen Zhonglin of the Harbin Institute of Technology claimed the authorities had wasted the chance to contain the contamination. "It should have been possible to filter the chemicals if upstream cities had taken effective measures," he said.

* An explosion tore through a coal mine in Tangshan, northern China yesterday, leaving at least 96 workers missing, the government said, the third such disaster in recent weeks.