China Environmental Law

Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province is making news again.  Shanghai Daily reports that on Thursday (June 5)

Toxic gas leaked out when two workers were cutting two wasted iron bottles at Guangyu junkyard in Qiqihar at 10 am yesterday, leaving three dead and 15 injured, an official of the local government said.

One seriously poisoned is currently receiving emergency medical treatment, while 14 others are under observation in hospital, a doctor said.

Local police arrived at the scene 45 minutes later. The toxic gas was confirmed to be phosgene, a colorless volatile gas, used as a poison gas and in making glass, dyes, resins, and plastics.

Phosgene is a highly poisonous gas usually used in industrial and military areas, local police said.

The two bottles were found by a local peasant when digging in his own fields. The peasant sold the bottles as wasted iron to a junk dealer named Yang Jun, who then sold them to the Gaungyu junkyard, the police said.

Further investigation for the age and source of the bottles is underway, the police said.

Five years ago the residents of Qigihar City suffered from mustard gas leaking from old canisters. A report notes that

Leakage of mustard gas canisters on August 4  [2003], left over by invading Japanese forces in World War II, has caused 35 people hospitalized. Two are now in critical situation.

As the Shanghai Daily article notes phosgene is used, among other applications, “as” a poison gas, just like mustard gas. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea who is responsible for those “wasted iron bottles” of phosgene (remind me to tell the story of the summer I worked at a chemical factory and it experienced a phosgene leak).  The Chinese report has shown remarkable restraint in not making the connection between the latest incident and the 2003 mustard gas leak. Simple failure of the reporter to research the archives can’t be ruled out, but recent Chinese efforts to foster better relations with Japan could also be a factor.

While relations with Japan may be improving, this latest leak brought out the knives in another important neighbor of China-Russia. It appears the Russian commentators can’t resist a cheap reference to China’s annus horribilis:

The numerous deities of Chinese mythology must be angry about something, what with bird flu virus hitting the provinces of Henang and Hubei, a huge death toll in an earthquake in Sichuan, and a recent gas leak in the Heilongjiang province.

Question: is blaming the earthquake on “angry Chinese deities” different from blaming it on bad karma?

The Russian report seems to confirm the military origin of the phosgene:

A local administration source in China earlier said the leak was caused by the explosion of a WWII bomb found by peasants.

Be that as it may, the Russian populace and authorities are not amused by this latest incident:

Russians living across the border are worried, because the Songhua River flows into the Amur. If the spillage reaches the confluence point, it will be the second environmental disaster of this scale in the past few years.

The Chinese authorities’ silence about the incident in Qiqihar “is a violation of an agreement signed between the [Russian] Natural Resources Ministry and China’s Environmental Committee,” said Minister Yury Trutnev.

The ministry earlier sent a note to China requesting official information as to the location, the cause of the incident and the type of chemicals that could have leaked into the surrounding area.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has also expressed its concern.

Interesting times!