Two factories in Sichuan were immediately closed down after 200
pupils at a nearby school fell sick from an unidentified gas leak
on Thursday morning, said a local government spokesman.
The two factories, an electrolytic zinc plant and a lead and
zinc washery, lie upstream from a river which flows through
Xingjing County of Sichuan Province. However, the river is not used
as a water source for local residents and no chemical plants are in
the school's vicinity.
An initial investigation from the local health department
pointed the finger at the lead and zinc washery, saying the
students could have been poisoned by gas discharged from there.
Students at a primary school in the town of Xinmiao, Xingjing
County, complained of a smell of bad eggs and of feeling a burning
sensation shortly before classes began. Their conditions worsened
with many suffering from headaches, vomiting and chest pains.
The investigators attributed the smell to a mixture of carbon
monoxide and sulfurated hydrogen, both of which could have been
discharged from the washery, according to the investigators.
The county's two hospitals received 200 students, with
twenty-one being diagnosed with symptoms consistent with poisoning
and 110 being kept under observation. The others have all been
discharged.
"The children are now in a stable condition, but they will stay
in hospital for further treatment and observation," said Shi Jun,
head of the hospital.
A similar incident occurred on April 16, when a chemical plant
in Xifeng County, Guizhou Province, discharged sulfur dioxide
into the air. The gas put 450 people in hospital, including five
teachers and 135 children from two primary schools and a middle
school.
Investigators later discovered that the culprit was a nearby
plant which had suffered a malfunction in one of its major sulfur
dioxide treatment devices.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2007)
