Hebei swimming club sues Shanxi chemical company over toxic spill

A swimming club in Handan, Hebei, is suing a chemical company in neighbouring Shanxi province over the cost of cleaning up a toxic spill and the delay in issuing a warning.

The first lawsuit over last week's spill was filed by Handan's winter swimming association, a registered non-government group with about 1,200 members. It is asking Shanxi's Tianji Coal Chemical Industry to pay 20 million yuan (HK$24.6 million) in compensation - 10 million yuan for the Handan city government's clean-up effort and 10 million yuan for moral suffering by hundreds of thousands of Handan residents. Drinking water supplies were cut off from Saturday to Tuesday.

The association cut its compensation demand from 160 million yuan to meet the limit for civil lawsuits. The Handan Intermediate People's Court will decide whether to accept the lawsuit within a week.

"The compensation figure is symbolic, as the real loss is still being counted," association chairman Shi Wensheng said. "But we want to give the [upstream] companies an alert, demanding they take the [pollution] issues seriously."

Shi said swimmers had been warned to stay away from the Zhuozhang River and the Yuecheng Reservoir, where water was contaminated by aniline from an upstream chemical plant in Changzhi , Shanxi.

The association also demanded the company eliminate production risks and thoroughly clean up the river and reservoir.