Water pollution from homemade fertilizer affected the drinking water of 9,000 people in two towns in southwest China's Yunnan Province last week and killed 20 tons of fish in a fishery, officials said on Tuesday.

The incident was caused by a villager named Zhou Shunfu, who dumped 120 tons of waste residues with phosphor onto his own fields, thinking that it could be used as fertilizer, they said. Zhou lives in Huawo Village in Songming Town of Kunming, capital of Yunnan.

The material contaminated the ground water and polluted the drinking water in and around Songming Town. Villages in Yiliang Town downstream were also affected.

At a fishery belonging to villager Yang Zhengbo, 20 tons of fries died within a day, costing him about 1.36 million yuan (about US$190,200).

The local government has notified villagers about the water problem and the government has sent a team to the site to clean up the pollution.

Zhou, meanwhile, has been taken into police custody while the incident remains under investigation.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2008)