Drinking water for 280m in China unsafe: report

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-03-16

Thirteen-year-old Xiong Sansan, the son of migrant workers from Guizhou, takes
 a break from collecting scrap metal at a landfill site on Beique Road in Liuzhou, in
 the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region to drink from a bottle of water, Aug. 29,
2013. (Photo/Xinhua)

A report released by China's environmental authority on Friday estimated that a total of 280 million residents in China are using unsafe drinking water.

The report, issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, was based on a sampling survey of 91,527 permanent residents aged 18 and above in 31 provincial-level regions to evaluate Chinese people's exposure to environmental risks.

The survey also projected that a total of 110 million Chinese people are living less than 1 kilometer away from at least one industrial site with pollution concerns, such as petrochemical, coking or thermal power plants.

About 140 million people live within 50 m of a main communication artery, it said.

The report advocated the establishment of a network for monitoring environmental health risks in the country's high-risk areas and intensifying risk evaluation measures and warnings.

The survey was conducted between 2011 and 2012.