[sarettah]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ixnewstop.html

Hundreds of thousands of people living in towns and villages along the upper reaches of the Songhua river were allowed to continue using toxic water for more than a week, even though authorities knew that benzene levels were lethally high, Chinese officials have admitted.

Anger was growing in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces as new details emerged of how officials lied to conceal the fact that a potentially deadly 50-mile long slick was slowly flowing through cities, towns and villages.

The sprawling city of Harbin remained the centre of containment efforts this weekend, with its water cut off for a fifth day.

But the authorities revealed that millions of people who live closer to the chemical plant where a huge blast occurred two weeks ago, releasing cancer-causing compounds, were kept in the dark for 10 days - despite the fact that some drew water regularly from the polluted river.

A water official in Jilin province said the decision not to reveal that in some places benzene levels were 108 times above the safety level was made because "we did not want to panic the public".