A total of 80 ocean and fishery pollution accidents occurred in China last year, resulting in direct economic loss of 580 million yuan (about US$70 million), said a communiqué on China's offshore ocean environment Thursday.  

The China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) Thursday released a communiqué of environmental quality in China's offshore ocean areas. The communiqué said the 80 pollution accidents affected more than 90,000 hectares of sea side and fishery areas in China.

Among these accidents, four cases were very serious and each resulted economic loss of over 10 million yuan, said the communiqué. In addition, there were still 11 cases of serious pollution cases with each bringing losses of over 1 million yuan.

According to the communiqué, in October 2003, industrial waste water and urban sewage water brought heavy loss to fisheries near the offshore areas at the river mouth in Binzhou city, Shandong Province, with all breeds of fish, shrimp and seashell dead and the evaluated economic loss totaled 420 million yuan (US$50.7 million).

The communiqué said that besides polluted water, oil leaks caused by ocean traffic accidents is also one major reason for ocean and fishery pollution. In 2003, two major ship collisions occurred in China respectively in August and December both resulting in large amounts of oil flowing into the sea.

(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2004)