Nearly 40 tons of a chemical used in manufacturing and agriculture leaked into a reservoir and a river in Shanxi province late last month, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing state-owned Xinhua news agency. Residents in Hebei province’s Handan city lost access to drinking water Saturday after the chemical compound aniline flowed eastward down the Zhouzhang river. Four officials at Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group were fired after a drainage valve at a company factory functioned improperly, resulting in the leak. It took the company five days to report the problem. A report on the front page of People’s Daily Monday said that 85% of Handan’s drinking water has been restored. The incident, while less severe than other recent environmental disasters in China, highlighted the country’s growing water pollution problem.