Anxiety spreads beyond lead-hit towns over true extent of pollution
As furious villagers tried to smash the factory near their homes in Shaanxi province that left more than 600 children sick with lead poisoning, anxiety spread in surrounding areas over the true extent of the pollution.
The local government in Fengxiang county declared a one-kilometre zone around the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting plant unsafe. This encompassed Madaokou and Sunjianantou villages, where 615 out of 731 children have been diagnosed with lead poisoning.
Residents of these two villages are to be relocated to an area of high ground just beyond the one kilometre mark. But they fear this is still far too close to the factory, and that their children will continue to be exposed to the terrible effects.
'We are very angry,' a 20-year-old Madaokou villager surnamed Ma said. 'We don't want to move to the plateau because it is not safe,' she said. 'We want the plant to be demolished.'
Ms Ma said the villagers had been reassured that new home construction would start immediately and all families would be able to move within two years. This is not the first time they have heard this - they were promised new homes in 2003 when the factory was built.
By Sunday, 166 of the 615 poisoned children in the villages had been admitted to hospital. Reports from other villages indicate the number of sick children could rise.
A mother living six kilometres from the plant who refused to give her name said her eight-year-old child was showing symptoms of poisoning. A test costs 60 yuan (HK$68) - a large sum in the rural province.
'My neighbours took their children for tests but I couldn't because the hospitals are too busy,' she said. 'People are unsatisfied because the government offers free medical treatment only for children living near the plant. It won't give people living on the edge like us a clear answer.'
In Chencun township, which is 5.3 kilometres from the plant, residents said children had tested positive for lead poisoning.
'Parents are so nervous but the government doesn't care,' a woman who asked not to be identified said.
Lead levels in children should be lower than 100 milligrams per litre of blood, but sick children from the two villagers gave readings of up to 500 milligrams. Exposure to lead can cause anaemia, fatigue, learning difficulties, kidney failure and death.
The poisoning reveals the quandary facing counties such as Fengxiang. In 2002, the county of 530,000 residents had only 50 million yuan in annual revenues.
But that had doubled by last year, with at least 24 million yuan contributed by the smelting plant, the news magazine Outlook reported. The plant also paid 123 million yuan in taxes to the provincial and central governments.
A Sunjianantou villager said the government had been scheduled to move residents living within 500 metres of the plant, but an environmental report in 2004 advised the protection zone be widened to a one-kilometre radius. The original plan had been to move all 581 households of the two villages by this year, but only 156 were moved.
