Chinese river too polluted to touch

MUCH of the water in two of China's main rivers is too polluted to touch, let alone drink, despite more than a decade of clean-ups.

The pollution of the Huai and Liao Rivers is a risk to a sixth of the population, state media reported yesterday.

Half the checkpoints along the Huai River and its tributaries in central and eastern China showed pollution of "Grade 5" or worse -- the top of the dial in key toxins, meaning it was unfit for human contact and may not be fit for irrigation.

Fourteen years of bids to clean them up had reduced some of the worst pollution, but factory waste was still far too high, chairman of the National People's Congress Environment and Resources Protection Committee Mao Rubai said in a report.

The rivers posed a "threat to the water safety of one-sixth of the country's 1.3 billion population", the China Daily said.

Full Story