China Eastern Airlines has agreed to pay 21.40 million yuan (US$2.68 million) to a park in northern China in compensation after a plane crash nearly two years ago spilled gallons of jet fuel into a lake.

The airline and the park management signed a compensation agreement in the industrial city of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.

On November 21, 2004, a China Eastern plane, bound for Shanghai, plunged into the frozen lake of Nanhai Park within minutes of takeoff, killing 53 passengers and crew and a worker on the ground.

The plane spilt jet fuel into the lake and contaminate the surrounding wetlands.

"The water was so badly polluted that we had to close down the park," Yu Wei, a park official, told Xinhua.

The amount of compensation was estimated by an assessment of the Inner Mongolian environmental protection authority. It covers the costs of a water change for the lake, the cleanup and treatment of the mud in the bottom of the lake, and restoration of its ecosystem and the surrounding area.

The cost is lower than the amount indicated in another assessment issued by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, which released a 5 million-word report last November.

In the earlier report, the academy, which conducted the assessment upon the request of the park, indicated that jet fuel released in the crash had seriously polluted the lake's water and soil, causing the deaths of large quantities of fish, algae and other water creatures.

The crash "seriously polluted the lake water and damaged its ecology," according to the report, which estimated that the losses for the park totalled 105.2 million yuan.

The Shanghai-based airlines and the park, however, failed to reach an agreement on the amount of the compensation after tough negotiation.

China Eastern then asked the Inner Mongolian environmental protection authority to conduct another assessment, on which both sides eventually reached an agreement.

The airline company had already paid the park authorities 11.34 million yuan to cover damages to facilities and ticket revenue losses since the two sides began the negotiation in January last year.

In an earlier interview with Shanghai Daily, another park official, Sun Wengang, said the plane crash has "not only destroyed the lake's environmental system but also the park's entire brand image and staff's means of employment."