"We will take all necessary and effective measures and do our utmost to minimize the pollution and reduce the damage to the Russian side," Hu told visiting Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.

Hu said China will deal with the issue seriously with an attitude of "being highly responsible to the two countries and the two peoples," the official Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

The country's top environmental agency, meanwhile, ordered a nationwide inspection of major factories near rivers to prevent a similar disaster from happening in the future, Xinhua said.

Widespread contamination prevention efforts have been underway in China and Russia since an explosion on November 13 at a PetroChina chemical factory in the northeast Chinese province of Jilin.

The accident led to the spillage of 100 tonnes of the carcinogens benzene and nitrobenzene into the Songhua River, one of China's longest waterways and a source of water for millions. The Songhua flows into the Heilong river which is connected by waterways to a river on the Russian side.

An expert panel from China's Water Resources Ministry has travelled to the Songhua River region in Heilongjiang, which borders Russia, to investigate the feasibility of the dam, the China Daily reported.

Russian authorities, who are particularly concerned about the potential contamination of the water supply for more than 600,000 people in the city of Khabarovsk, proposed the dam idea, according to the report.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang confirmed that China was considering building such a dam but did not say who would foot the bill.

The Chinese side "agreed to give positive consideration, including setting up a dam in the Fuyuan waterway and such similar engineering projects," Qin said.

The Fuyuan waterway joins the Heilong and Wusuli rivers along the two nations' border.

Qin did not give any other details about the project but said China and Russia were in consultation.

The slick on Thursday arrived in the northeastern Chinese city of Jiamusi, the second largest city in Heilongjiang province with over two million people, Xinhua said.

Officials had turned off the public water system in Jiamusi earlier this week, repeating the action taken for the much larger provincial capital of Harbin last month.

The benzene slick is expected to enter the Amur river bordering Russia on December 19 before reaching Khabarovsk on December 25, Russian authorities warned Thursday.

Though the current concentration of benzene in the 130-kilometre (81-mile) slick is over 15 times authorised levels, experts believe that it will fall to just two times the normal limit by the time it reaches Khabarovsk.

A dyke has been constructed on the Russian side to try to keep the pollution away from the city's drinking water sources and authorities plan to cut off all supplies from the Amur river as the pollution passes by.

Alarmed and embarrassed by the incident, China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), whose director resigned last Friday over the spill, said Thursday it was launching a nationwide safety inspection targetting big or medium-size enterprises along rivers, Xinhua said.

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