More than 20 students in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province fell sick Thursday and were rushed to hospital for suspected food poisoning, their school said Friday.

The students of Deqiang Primary and Secondary School in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, began suffering vomiting attacks and diarrhea at about 4 p.m., said Wei Jinghai, a school supervisor.

The students said they felt sick after eating noodles with stewed long beans at noon in the school's dinning hall, but the school said they might have caught a cold during PE class.

Long beans can be poisonous if not thoroughly cooked.

Officers with the city's hygiene and disease control department said they will conduct tests to see if the students had indeed suffered from food poisoning.

Most of the students had been discharged from hospital Friday.