Mayor apologizes over N China river contamination(2)

PUBLIC PANIC

The delayed response to the contamination caused panic in Handan, where residents ransacked stores for bottled water.

People expressed anger at the Changzhi City government's apparent coverup of the contamination, which left them no time to prepare water supplies at home.

The city has prevented a sluice gate from taking in water from Zhangzhuo River, and turned to an underground water source to meet needs.

The local environmental bureau said on Monday that it is clearing the contaminated water in its reservoir. "The reservoir water will not be used until test results prove it safe," it said.

Although water supply to the city is gradually being resumed, some locals continue to worry.

A citizen surnamed Jia said, "We have narrowly survived this crisis, but who can ensure that this kind of thing will never happen in the future? When the next pollution occurs, will we not be informed until five days later?"

GOVERNMENT CREDIBILITY IN QUESTION

Since Saturday, the delay of the incident report has sparked outrage in China's cyber space.

Many netizens say a lack of supervision led to the chemical leakage and the delay in dealing with the matter shows that some people were intentionally withholding the truth and trying to shift responsibility.

Micro-blogger "@Hanlu" entered a post on Sina Weibo saying that the shifting of responsibility is much worse than the incident itself.

Du Junfei, a professor at Nanjing University, said the five-day delay in exposing the incident has violated the national government's provisions on disclosure of information, and that the lag has damaged society's interests.

According to Du, some local governments still lack legal awareness and public supervision, and the country should strengthen the rule of law in order to cure this problem.

Wang Shaoyu, a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology in Heilongjiang Province, said that delayed and concealed reports are usually important contributors to losses of control in handling environmental emergencies.