Oil leak blamed for water contamination in NW China city

Staff members test water samples at Veolia Water, the sole water supplier for more than 2 million people in urban Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, April 11, 2014. (Xinhua/Chen Bin)

Investigators have blamed oil leak from a subsidiary of CNPC, China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, for the tap water contamination that affected more than 2.4 million people in Lanzhou since Friday.

A crude oil leak from one of the oil transmission pipelines owned by Lanzhou Petrochemical contaminated the source water that fed a local water plant, and brought hazardous levels of benzene in the city's tap water, said Yan Zijiang, Lanzhou's environmental protection chief, at a conference call with the city government Saturday.