Beijing, August 24: Health and environmental officials have been sent to central China to investigate who is responsible for pollution from a manganese processing plant that caused more than 1,300 children to become sickened with lead poisoning, a local government official said Monday.
The poisoning near the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping township in Hunan province was the second such case involving a large number of children in the last month.
In Shaanxi province in northern China, at least 615 out of 731 children in two villages near the Dongling smelter in the town of Changqing have tested positive for lead poisoning.
Both cases have sparked unrest and come amid growing anger in China over public safety scandals in which children have been the main victims. The ruling Communist party is worried that mass protests will threaten the country’s social stability and considers the protests a serious challenge to its grip on power.
Officials from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Health will try to find those responsible for the poisoning in Wenping.
“Central government officials arrived over the weekend to work with local authorities to begin the investigation of the incident,” said a spokesman surnamed Xiao, for the Wugang city government office.
Xiao, who would not give his full name, said two officials from the city’s environmental protection bureau were being investigated for dereliction of duty. He did not give details.
Calls to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Health rang unanswered Monday.
The plant in Wenping opened in May 2008 without the approval of the local environmental protection bureau. It is within 500 yards (meters) of a primary school, a middle school and a kindergarten.
The official Xinhua News Agency said last week that 1,354 children who live near the plant — nearly 70 percent of those tested — were found to have excessive lead in their blood. Lead poisoning can damage the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and memory loss.
—Agencies