Flood In China Washes 3,000 Barrels Of Toxics Into River - Authorities Scrambling To Fish Them Out

[hatrack]

BEIJING — Workers on Friday struggled to recover 3,000 barrels filled with hazardous chemicals that were swept into a river in northeast China by floods, amid fears some had sunk, state media said.

Soldiers and emergency personnel fanned out at several points along the Songhua river in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces to recover the barrels, which came from two factories damaged by floodwaters, Xinhua news agency reported.

A total of 7,000 barrels were known to be missing from the plants near the city of Jilin -- 3,000 of them filled with trimethyl chloro silicane or hexamethyl disilazane, both colourless, toxic liquids. So far, workers using cranes and steel nets have recovered about 3,000 barrels, but it was not immediately clear how many of them contained the chemicals, Xinhua said.

While tests have so far shown no signs of water contamination, workers tracking the barrels have apparently lost sight of some of them -- fuelling fears they have sunk to the riverbed, making their retrieval more difficult. On Friday, the local government encouraged the public to join the salvage efforts, offering a reward of 100 yuan (15 dollars) for each full barrel retrieved, and 50 yuan for each empty container, Xinhua reported.

EDIT

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxTnvR7O_XTw0hlcQkIMRoQEGV1A

[mike r]

1. Using this method?

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/07/cleaning_dalian_harbor.html