China's longest river is dying due to pollution and the actions of growth-obsessed local authorities, threatening drinking water for the country's most heavily populated regions, including Shanghai, state media said yesterday.
Mainland environmental experts were quoted by the Xinhua-owned Economic Information Daily as saying the Yangtze River was turning 'cancerous', with dangers of it becoming a 'dead river' in the next five years.
'Despite appalling pollution, many officials still think it is nothing for the Yangtze,' said Yuan Aiguo, a professor at the China University of Geosciences.
The river absorbs more than 40 per cent of the country's total waste water, 80 per cent of it untreated, according to Lu Jianjian, from East China Normal University in Shanghai.
Despite warnings and increased investment by Beijing in clean-up efforts in recent years, the pollution shows no signs of being brought under control, with the amount of untreated waste water being discharged increasing rapidly.
A total of 25.6 billion tonnes of waste water flowed into the river last year, compared to 16.8 billion tonnes in 2004. Industrial and chemical waste, sewage, agricultural pollution and shipping discharges were listed as the top dangers to the river, putting at risk 186 cities which depend on the Yangtze for drinking water, experts said.