A truck carrying 60 tons of coal tar has overturned and spilled its entire load into a local river in north China's Shanxi Province, threatening a downstream water reservoir in neighboring Hebei Province, the local government said Wednesday.

The accident occurred at around 5 PM on Monday in Fanzhi County of Shanxi, causing the sticky liquid to spill into the Dasha River.

The spill had reached Fuping County in Hebei on the lower reaches of the river by Tuesday morning, the county's government confirmed.

The spill, moving at about one kilometer per hour, is approaching the Wangkuai Reservoir about 70 kilometers from the accident, officials with the Hebei Provincial Environment Protection Bureau said.

Wangkuai is one of two key reservoirs that supplies water to the city of Baoding which has a population of more than 10 million urban and rural residents.

Clean up crews have set up nine dams in an effort to intercept the spill and 10 tons active carbon have been trucked to the site to absorb the coal tar. More than 3,000 residents of Fuping have joined the government's disaster-relief teams.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2006)