Workers have recovered 6,387 chemical barrels and located 684 others stuck on flood-ravaged land along a major river in northeast China by Sunday night, four days after floods swept them into the waterway, local officials said.

The barrels were retrieved within the borders of Jilin Province and water quality tests show that the Songhua River, a major drinking source for millions in the region, has not been contaminated, said officials with the Jilin provincial government.

A total of 3,662 barrels filled with colorless and highly explosive chemicals -- mainly trimethyl chloro silicane and hexamethyl disilazane -- and 3,476 empty barrels were swept into the Wende River, a tributary of Songhua, after floods destroyed two chemical plant warehouses in Jilin City, Jilin Province on Wednesday.

Torrents carried the barrels into the Songhua River, raising fears of water contamination.

However, the barrels were intercepted after more than 12,000 soldiers, armed police, emergency workers and local residents in Jilin fanned out along the Songhua River's 235 kilometer waterways to collect the barrels, working around the clock, officials said.

A soldier, Guan Xizhi, was swept away by flood waters while retrieving barrels Friday near Hadashan Dam, Songyuan City and his body was recovered Saturday, military authorities said Sunday.

The 1,900-kilometer-long Songhua River is the largest tributary for the Heilong River, which in places traces the China-Russia border.

The river is a source of drinking water for cities in Jilin and Heilongjiang.

The incident has revived memories of an explosion in 2005 at a petrochemical plant in Jilin Province. The accident contaminated the Songhua River and left 3.8 million people in Harbin without drinking water for four days.

In a similar accident Friday, 1,500 sealed drums containing oil, resin and fertilizer sunk in floodwaters in the central China city of Wuhan, on the Yangtze River.

But all the drums have been safely recovered and the water quality of the Yangtze River was not affected.

Police have detained those responsible for the improper storage of the drums.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2010)