A copper plant at the center of a river pollution scandal sprang a new leak on Friday, which was quickly capped to avoid further damaging the river, the company said on Saturday.

Staff on duty at Zijinshan Copper Mine discovered a new leak at No 3 waste tank at around 10:30 PM on Friday, Zijin Mining Group said in a statement.

"They took immediate action to cap it," the statement added.

About 500 cubic meters of plant waste was discharged, company sources said.

Many of the 60,000 people whose water sources were affected by the spill have said they believe the water is unsafe.

"I don't cook with the water and resort to using bottled water from elsewhere," a local woman, who would only give her surname, Lin, told China Daily on Sunday.

"But I'm afraid I'm still a potential victim of contaminated water, because I sometimes drink tea or have meal in local restaurant," she said.

Villager Qiu Kaiwen, 38, said he was desperately anxious about his fish farm.

"I don't care about the new pollution, because all my fish died after the first leak, and I haven't received any economic compensation," he told China Daily on Sunday.

"I hope the government could tell me when I could resume my business."

The Tingjiang River was visibly light blue on Sunday because of the copper, and it smelled of rotten fish.

The previous leak killed about 1.89 million kg of fish in the Mianhuatan Reservoir in Yongding County, official figures show.

Zijin Mining Group is China's leading gold producer and a listed company based in east China's Fujian Province.

It has been under fire since 9,100 cubic meters of waste spewed from a blown-out tank at the Zijinshan Copper Mine into the Tingjiang River from 4 pm on July 3 until 2:30 PM on July 4.

The company said it had suspended two mine officials in charge of environmental protection.

Three other company executives have been detained by police in Shanghang County, where the mine is located.

The scandal has led to the sacking of three government officials, including a deputy county head and two environmental protection officials. Qiu Heqing, the head of Shanghang county government, has also been suspended from work while the case is under investigation.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection had sent a working group to investigate the first river pollution scandal. The team returned to the site after the new waste leak, China Youth Daily reported on Sunday.

The copper factory and local environmental protection authorities failed to detect the pollution because water quality monitoring facilities in the lower reaches of the Tingjiang River had been damaged, the report said.

(China Daily July 19, 2010)