ore than a hundred villagers in southern China have been poisoned by after drinking water apparently contaminated with arsenic, official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
The residents of two villages in Guangxi province began to show symptoms, including swelling in the face and eyes, vomiting and blurred eyesight, on Friday. Xinhua said 136 had been poisoned.
Medical tests found excessive amounts of arsenic in their urine, Xinhua said. The water source was likely polluted by industrial waste from a nearby metallurgy company, it said.
The poisoning is not serious, Xinhua said, and immediate treatment could cure the villagers. Safe drinking water is also being transported to the villages in Hechi city.
The metallurgy company discharged waster rich with arsenic before 2005, which seeped underground and tainted a local pond, Xinhua said citing a government investigation.
China's double-digit economic growth has come with a surge in heavily polluting industries. The country is home to 16 of the world's 20 most heavily polluted cities.
China's communist leadership has recently become more sensitive to the environmental cost of the country's economic boom after a series of high-profile accidents along polluted rivers, disrupting water supplies to major cities. Farmers have protested over tainted water supplies and ruined land.
The government is also struggling to reassure domestic and foreign consumers that it is providing sufficient oversight in other industries after dairy products laced with the industrial chemical melamine were blamed in the deaths of four children and for sickening more than 54,000 others. The crisis has led to recalls of Chinese-made milk products worldwide.
ore than a hundred villagers in southern China have been poisoned by after drinking water apparently contaminated with arsenic, official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
