The two people blamed for a chemical spill at the end of last year that polluted the Duliu River in Guizhou province with arsenic and poisoned villagers have been taken into custody, the national environmental agency said yesterday.

Local officials suspected of dereliction of duty in the case are also under investigation, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said.

Although SEPA did not give the names of the alleged perpetrators, the Xinhua News Agency had earlier named them as Zhang Deren and his wife, Song Rongju.

Last month, Zhang began operating a sulfuric acid plant in Dushan county in the Buyi and Miao ethnic autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province, without permission from authorities.

As a result of his use of substandard production equipment, soon after he began operating the plant, some 1,900 tons of wastewater containing arsenic leaked into the Duliu River. It is still not known how much arsenic was in the wastewater, SEPA said.

The leak led to villagers in the lower reaches of the river being poisoned. They suffered from nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and headaches after drinking the polluted water. Seventeen of them sought medical treatment.

Traces of arsenic can be found in the body, but large amounts of it can lead to cancer and even death.

All the affected villagers have since recovered, SEPA said.

The pollution also caused the suspension of freshwater supplies in the area for at least 10 days, local sources said.

(China Daily January 24, 2008)