China lead factory poisons 2000+

More than two thousand Chinese villages are being treated in hospital(a lot of them being critical) due to lead poisoning by a local lead smelting plant. This include 300 innocent childern. The villagers had traveled from their northwestern province of Gansu to a hospital in Xi'an in neighboring Shaanxi because hospitals near their three villages had insisted they were fine.

"We don't trust local hospitals because they said our lead concentration levels were normal, so we traveled to somewhere further away," Liu Jiangtao, from surrounding Hui county, was quoted as saying. "Everyone from our village has gone there."

County government officials told Reuters only two villages were close to the lead smelter and the county was still investigating how many people had been poisoned.

These type of incidents are getting more and more common in China where environmental issues are neglected in the name of industrialisation, gloabalisation and quick profits. Inspite a lot of protests, these issues still remain to be addressed. This is a shame inspite of China being a Communist country catered to the welfare of the people.

Courtesy:Reuters