Thousands poisoned by lead from smelting plant, Gansu villagers claim

Thousands of villagers in the northwest province of Gansu have been showing up to hospital with lead poisoning they say was caused by a local smelting plant.

The villagers, from Shuiyang township in Hui county, say they must travel nine hours to a hospital in Xian in neighbouring Shaanxi because local hospitals insist they are fine, the Huashang Daily reported yesterday. Until last year, the smelting plant was owned by the state. It was ordered to close last month, the report said.

More than 2,000 residents, including 300 children, from three villages in two townships, had visited the hospital, resident Liu Jiangtao said.

All six members of his family had lead levels above normal, including his two daughters, aged 10 and 11, he said. 'The hospital is full of people from our county. Everyone from our village has gone there. We don't trust local hospitals because they said our lead concentration levels were normal, so we travel to somewhere further away,' said Mr Liu, who returned to his village last night.

'The paediatric ward is so full and it can't accommodate my daughters, we have to come back.'

Mr Liu said villagers suspected the 12-year-old plant of poisoning them.

A propaganda official from Hui county, who only gave his surname as Lo, said the cases caught the authority's attention when an eight-year-old child from Xinsi village was diagnosed with lead poisoning late last month.