Cover-up of toxic spill in China raises doubts: Can leaders be believed?

BEIJING — When a chemical plant exploded and leaked poison into a river in northeastern China, sparking a calamity this week, regional officials employed a time-tested strategy to quash the bad news: They lied.

First, they denied the chemical plant along the Songhua River had leaked any pollutants. When a 50-mile slick of cancer-causing benzene threatened the drinking water of Harbin, the largest city in northeastern China, officials shut down the water system. They told the city's 3.8 million residents that the four-day water cutoff was for maintenance.

Only when panic and public suspicion overwhelmed officials Wednesday did they admit that 100 tons of toxic chemicals had leaked into the river after the Nov. 13 explosion and acknowledge the danger to public health.

In one of several tough reports on Friday, the state-run China Youth Daily quoted an unidentified city engineer in Jilin saying party officials there were told of the chemical spill within eight hours of the explosion. Citing another unnamed source, it also said the Jilin officials released water from a reservoir into the river in an attempt to dilute the spill and fix the problem without alerting the public.

On Friday night, reporters received orders from the party's central propaganda department to stop asking questions and go home. All state media were told to use only the reports of the official New China News Agency (Xinhua), the journalists said.

In a sign the party is worried about a public backlash, the report suggested in unusually blunt terms that officials would be disciplined. "Punishments of irresponsible acts are on the way," it said.

Echoes of Chernobyl

As the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident did in the Soviet Union, the government's lies and attempts to cover up the disaster — and the angry public reaction — have illustrated how brittle government credibility is in a one-party state.

As bird-flu cases are reported almost daily, and other health, labor and environmental problems fester, some Chinese wonder whether they can trust officials on public-safety issues.

Across China, a quarter-century of expanding capitalism has unleashed powerful forces of change and those left behind or hurt by the upheavals are increasingly turning to the streets, angry about pollution in their rivers, industry gobbling up their farmland and poor working conditions in factories.

The explosion at a chemical plant in Jilin, about 120 miles southeast of Harbin, highlighted complaints that the government is failing to protect the public from the environmental damage caused by China's roaring economic growth.

The disaster "has stunned the whole nation," Xinhua said, an apparent effort to assure the public that President Hu Jintao and other leaders share its shock and anger.

As the weekend began, the toxic benzene mostly had passed through Harbin, but another benzene spill occurred after a factory explosion in Chongqing, in southwestern China. Some 6,000 people reportedly were evacuated.

As the benzene slick moved down the partially frozen Songhua River toward the Amur River in Russia's Far East on Friday, Russia grew jittery.

"Chemical Attack Threatens the Amur," the Vladivostok Daily News warned Friday in a huge front-page headline. The Khabarovsk region along the border with China entered a state of emergency, and officials there said river water might not be safe until early next year. China's environmental agency says the pollutants are expected to reach Russia in about two weeks.

Benzene, a solvent and a component of gasoline, isn't soluble in water and can cause liver damage and cancer.

More than 100 emergency water wells have been sunk around Harbin, but residents Friday spent a third day drinking only bottled beverages, with no running water. Hundreds of villagers were evacuated.

In Harbin on Friday, a line of about 500 people stretching for 100 yards waited in windy, subzero weather for water to come by truck. When a truck with a tank on its bed arrived, residents rushed to fill teakettles, buckets and basins at a portable tap with five spigots.

"Everyone has enough at home for the basics, but they want to add some for washing and cooking," said Guan Hongya, 54, a textile manager.

The city's deputy Communist Party secretary, Du Yuxin, said water service might not resume until Monday. Officials said they needed time to be sure supplies are safe.

Two reservoirs on the Songhua River have been ordered to release more water to dilute the toxin, Xinhua said.

"They can't flush their toilets. It's very cold in the city, and they need a lot of water for their [steam] heating systems," said environmental consultant Ma Jun, author of a 2004 book "China's Water Crisis."

"It will take extra effort to restore confidence," Ma said. "Otherwise, people will only become more skeptical."

Gov. Zhang Zuoji of Heilongjiang province, downstream from Jilin province, promised to drink the first glass of water from Harbin taps once water is restored to show that officials care about citizens' well-being.

In an apparent attempt to deflect attention from Beijing, state-run Chinese media lashed out Friday at the Jilin provincial government and the Jilin Petrochemical Plant, a subsidiary of China's largest state-owned oil company, for its failure to disclose the damage.

"We do not know what is behind the cover-up. It might be because they were afraid that they would have to pay money for the losses the pollution has incurred in Harbin, and it might be because they were afraid of losing face," the English-language China Daily newspaper said in an editorial.

Lessons of SARS

One newspaper called on Beijing to learn a lesson from the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, when the government tried to smother news of the disease, which eventually killed nearly 800 people in 30 countries.

"The government should tell the public the truth," the Beijing News said. "During SARS, the publication of truthful information turned the situation around."

Such comments would not be published without high-level official approval. They apparently were meant to prod authorities in Harbin to do all they could to help the public and to warn officials elsewhere to prevent such disasters.

China's leaders also sent a team Friday to investigate the first chemical-plant accident.

The team sent to Harbin included disciplinary officials, which "indicates punishments of irresponsible acts are on the way," Xinhua reported. It didn't give any other details.

"At the first sign of anything, Chinese people have the tendency to believe what the government tells them. What is interesting to me is how quickly the credibility breaks down," said Michael Pettis, an associate professor of finance at Peking University.

During the SARS crisis, Pettis said, word of a government cover-up spread rapidly by cellphone text-messaging.

"At the end of three days, nobody trusted the government," he said.

Chinese are more wired and digitally connected than ever, making government cover-ups more difficult. The nation has 377 million cellphone users.

"In today's China, it's very hard for the government to conceal information," said Yang Hongshan, deputy director of the Public Policy Research Center at People's University in Beijing. "The public can turn to text messages, the Internet or other ways for help. Rumors can spread more easily, and there can be greater panic."

Material from The Washington Post and The Associated Press is included in this report.