The chief public utility official in Chifeng City, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was fired Tuesday over a tap water-pollution incident that sickened more than 4,000 residents last week.

The Chifeng municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held a meeting Tuesday to remove the official, Guo Mingda, as the Party chief of the municipal construction commission that is in charge of the construction and management of public utilities, a source from the committee said Wednesday.

The CPC municipal committee also proposed the removal of Guo as the director of the construction commission.

Yu Xiufeng, deputy director of the commission, received similar punishment at the meeting.

More than 4,000 local residents have sought medication for gastrointestinal illnesses after the tap water supply was contaminated by rainfall on July 23 in Chifeng.

The patients complained of fever, diarrhea, stomachache and vomiting after drinking tap water since July 25.

The contaminated well provides tap water for Chifeng's "new city center," a 17-square km area with a population of 58,000 people.

(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2009)