BEIJING, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- China's problems of marine pollution and toxic tides are getting worse, the official China Daily said Sunday.
"The coastal marine ecosystem is worsening, the quality of ocean water is deteriorating and large amounts of pollutants are infiltrating from land to the sea," said Li Chunxian, a spokesman for the State Oceanic Administration told the paper.
The most heavily polluted areas were along the coastline, including Bohai Bay off the coast of North China and the mouth of the Yangtze River, Li said. Discharge of land waste through ocean dumping is the major cause of ocean pollution, he said.
A new report released by the SOA said 80 percent of sea areas near effluent outlets were heavily polluted in 2004.
Major pollutants carried by rivers such as the Yellow River and the Yangtze into the sea weighed 11.45 million tons, it said.
Economic losses suffered by the coastal areas from storms, typhoons, red tides, tidal waves and oil spills reached 5.4 billion yuan or $653 million and claimed the lives of 140 people, the report said. Red tides occurred 96 times in 2004 and were more often found in the East China Sea and Bohai Sea. More than 20 were toxic, it said.
