Over 5,000 of the 7,000 chemical barrels, that were swept into a major river in northeast China's Jilin province, have been recovered by Saturday evening.

But local authorities said it was still not immediately clear how many of the retrieved barrels contained chemicals, Xinhua reported.

Some 3,000 full barrels and 4,000 empty ones were swept into the Wende River and on to the Songhua River after floods hit warehouses of two chemical factories in Jilin City early Wednesday.