The southern cities of Guangzhou and Foshan were ordered by the provincial government of Guangdong yesterday to initiate emergency plans to ensure safe drinking water supplies as a toxic slick of cadmium approaches on the Beijiang River.

The pollution was caused by contaminated wastewater discharged by a state-owned smelting plant upstream in Shaoguan City into the Beijiang, a major source of drinking water for cities in the northern part of Guangdong.

Environmental protection experts quoted by Xinhua News Agency today said the density of cadmium in the river has continued to fall after local governments began diluting it with water from reservoirs along its upper reaches.

On Tuesday, Zhang Lijun, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), arrived with a group of 14 experts at Yingde, a city of 1.06 million people about 90 km south of Shaoguan, which the pollutants reached that night.

Cadmium occurs primarily in zinc, copper and lead ores, and is used in low-friction, fatigue-resistant alloys, solders, dental amalgams, nickel-cadmium storage batteries, nuclear reactor shields and rustproof electroplating.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2005)