Seepage from a mining waste pond owned by the Zijinshan Copper Mine has contaminated the Ding River and a reservoir in Fujian, the province's environmental protection bureau said in a statement.

The leak was first detected on July 3, prompting the bureau to issue an emergency order to begin monitoring it, the statement said.

Xinhua news agency said the mine is owned by the Hong Kong-listed Zijin Mining Group Co, China's largest gold producer.

Pollution from the sludge pond has killed or poisoned 1.89 million kilogrammes (4.2 million pounds) of fish on the Ding River and in the Mianhuatan reservoir, the report said.

The smell of dead fish was discernible 10 kilometres (six miles) from the reservoir, it added.

"The county government has issued a circular asking residents to turn in poisoned fish for collective disposal," the report quoted local villagers as saying, adding that villagers would be compensated for the fish they collect.

One villager said he lost 25,000 kilogrammes of fish that he was raising on his fish farm, it said.

Neither the government statement nor Xinhua made mention of any possible impact the spill was having on local drinking and irrigation water.

Years of unbridled economic growth have left most of China's lakes and rivers heavily polluted. More than 200 million Chinese currently do not have access to safe drinking water, according to government data.

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