BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- The pollution of a Songhua River tributary will not hurt Russia, said an environmental protection bureau official in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province here Friday.

    Guo Yuan, deputy director of the bureau, said they had started rigorously monitoring water quality in the Songhua River as soon as they learnt of the pollution on its tributary Mangniu River.

    "The pollutants were cleared before the pollution belt arrived at the Songhua River. They will not do any damage to Russia," Guo said.           The Mangniu River, which runs through the city of Jilin, in neighboring Jilin Province, was reported polluted with chemicals on Monday.

    Experts arriving at the river were greeted with the sight of a five-kilometer-long pollution slick of bubbly, red water.

    Preliminary tests indicate that the major pollutant is xylidine.

    The State Environmental Protection Administration has already reported the pollution incident to the Russian embassy to China.

    A SEPA official confirmed on Friday that the water quality of the Songhua River in northeast China has not been affected by the chemical pollutants on its tributary Mangniu River.

    The official, who did not give his name, said the pollutants in the tributary had already been cleared and water quality in the Mangniu River has basically returned to normal.

    A working team from the SEPA rushed to the polluted sector of the tributary on learning the report early Tuesday.

    The Jilin city government launched emergency plans and deployed more than 1,000 army personnel and fire fighters to build a pollution interception dam and two dams with activated carbon to absorb the pollutants.

    Apart from monitoring the water quality of the Mangniu River, the city government asked all citizens to be vigilant about their drinking water.

    The municipal government of Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, was quick to report the water pollution situation to citizens. It intensified supervision of water quality in the Songhua River, the source of Harbin's drinking water.

    Water supply in Harbin urban districts is currently normal and no problems have been reported with the city's drinking water.

    The official said the pollutants were illegally discharged by Changbaishan Jingxi Chemical Co., Ltd.

    The company poured ten cubic meters of polluted water into the river at midnight on Aug. 20.

    The company has been ordered to stop production and company personnel responsible for the pollution have been detained. Enditem