to be finished in the next two days, a staff member with the county government told China Daily on Monday.

Analysts said health emergencies resulting from polluted water have become more and more common in recent years. They said most of the emergencies can be traced back to discharges of industrial and sanitary wastewater.

In the latest such case, the drinking water going to nearly 300 rural households in Dafeng, a city of Jiangsu province, was infected with wastewater from a nearby chemical plant.

Jiangsu TV broadcast footage on Sunday showing muddy and yellowish water.

Since early April, hundreds of Dafeng residents have suffered from diarrhea and have sought treatment in hospitals, a local villager was quoted as saying.

The local government began to send clean water to the endangered households on April 20. As for the chemical plant blamed for the pollution, it has not issued a statement about the case, the report said.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a non-governmental group based in Beijing, told China Daily on Monday that water pollution can be prevented.

"For instance, sewer pipes in some cities are old," he said. "But local governments rarely pay much attention to such matters, which causes cities to be faced with greater risks of water pollution in the future."