HARBIN, China - Running water was restored to a major Chinese city of 3.8 million on Sunday follo... Running Water Restored in

HARBIN, China - Running water was restored to a major Chinese city of 3.8 million on Sunday following a five-day shutdown caused by a chemical spill, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Restoration of service came five hours earlier than scheduled, but it was not immediately clear whether it would continue or whether it was for the whole city.

Water service had been suspended since Tuesday after authorities feared that the Songhua River had been contaminated by toxins spewed into the water after a Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion.

Xinhua said that the 50-mile long spill had passed through Harbin and that chemicals in the river had fallen back to safe levels. Authorities, however, warned that it was still not safe to drink the water.

"Testing of the water at the water company has reached the standard (for chemical levels), so there is no problem with resuming supplies," a spokesman for the propaganda department in Heilongjiang province, where Harbin is located, said early Sunday.

Liu Yurun, general manager for the Harbin Water Group, the city's water utility, said local radio and television stations will broadcast a color-based indicator of water safety over the next few days _ red for unusable, yellow for bathing only and green for drinking.

Work crews were installing more than 1,000 tons of carbon filters at water plants in preparation for treating supplies from the Songhua, according to state media.

In preparation, people lined up for another day in freezing wind holding out buckets and teakettles for water provided free of charge and delivered by truck from wells operated by factories and a beer brewery.

The Harbin disaster began with a Nov. 13 explosion at the chemical plant in Jilin, a city about 120 miles southeast. Five people were killed and 10,000 evacuated.

But it was only last week that the government announced that the Songhua had been poisoned with 100 tons of benzene. The spill is possibly the biggest ever of the chemical, a potentially cancer-causing compound used in making detergents and plastics.

State media have criticized local officials for reacting too slowly and failing to tell the public the truth in a timely manner. Environmentalists have said the government failed to prepare for such a disaster and questioned the decision to allow construction of a plant handling such dangerous materials near important water supplies.

Premier Wen Jiabao promised a full investigation when he visited Harbin on Saturday and told leaders to see that every resident got running water.

Pictures of Wen visiting a water treatment plant and Harbin residents were on the front pages of newspapers in an apparent effort to assure the public of Beijing's concern for their safety.

The spill is an embarrassment to President Hu Jintao's government, which has made a priority of repairing environmental damage from 25 years of sizzling economic growth and of looking after ordinary Chinese.

Also Saturday, the Chinese foreign minister made an unusual public apology to Moscow's ambassador to Beijing for damage caused by the benzene spill, which is flowing toward a city in the Russian Far East.

Meanwhile, authorities in southwest China where another chemical plant accident had sparked fears of a second chemical leak said contamination of a nearby river was under control, Xinhua reported Sunday on its Web site.

State media said the blast occurred Thursday in Dianjiang, a county in the Chongqing region, killing one worker. It was first reported on Friday. Schools were closed and about 6,000 people were evacuated.

More than 800 residents and Communist Party members were helping to clean the contaminated portion of the Guixi River using screens made of straw and charcoal, Xinhua said Sunday. Water samples are being tested every four hours, it said.

This is cache, read story here