West Virginia chemical spill leaves 300,000 without tap water

Local residents pick up drinking water from a tanker truck at Riverside High School in Charleston, West Virginia January 10, 2014. REUTERS/Lisa Hechesky

CHARLESTON, W., Virginia (Reuters) - Up to 300,000 West Virginia residents spent a second night unable to bathe, shower or drink tap water on Saturday after a chemical spill into the Elk River near the state capital of Charleston, although chemical levels were declining.

As much as 5,000 gallons (18,927 litres) of industrial chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or Crude MCHM, leaked into the river on Thursday, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin told CNN.