More than 200 children in Kunming's Dongchuan district have been found to have unsafe levels of lead in their blood, the third major case of child lead poisoning in China this month.

During routine blood testing in Dongchuan's Tongdu county, more than 200 out of 1,000 children tested were found to have blood lead levels of more than 100 micrograms per liter.

Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning. Blood lead levels of more than 100 micrograms per liter have been found to impede normal behavior and cognitive development in children under the age of six years.

Hospital management at Tongdu's Healthcare Center for Women and Children said that the high blood lead levels among children in the area were likely due to car exhaust. Some local parents dismissed the hospital explanation, saying that a nearby industrial park was to blame.

China Daily quoted a mother from Yingpan village (营盘村), where the industrial park, which has been in operation since 2004, is located:


Local environmental officials are investigating the source of the lead poisoning. Management of Yingpan's industrial park declined to discuss the lead poisonings with China Daily reporters, the paper said.

On August 13, the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Hunan province was closed by local officials after more than 1,300 children living near the plant were found to have unsafe blood lead levels. Four days later on August 17, hundreds of villagers attacked a lead and zinc smelting facility in Changqing, Shaanxi province after 851 children were found to have high blood lead levels.

The three high-profile lead poisoning cases in the last month have put pressure on national and local officials to close facilities that do not meet basic environmental protection regulations. Some analysts have also suggested the lead poisoning scandal could lead to industry consolidation in addition to plant shutdowns.

The China Daily reported that the national environmental ministry ratified a new Implementation Plan on Controlling Heavy Metal Pollution, which is still waiting approval from the Cabinet-level State Council. The regulation prescribes better cooperation between government departments to avoid further pollution by heavy metal smelting industries.

Update: The Associated Press has information about a recent government study in which it was found that up to 60 percent of children in mining areas in Yunnan are suffering from lead poisoning.

Today 243 people injured in last week's Wenchuan earthquake arrived in Kunming for medical treatment. As Sichuan's medical infrastructure feels the strain of tens of thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of injured, the Chinese government is shifting 8,000 injured out of Sichuan to Chongqing, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Guangdong and Yunnan.

It is the largest shifting of injured since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976 that killed a quarter of a million people.

Hospitals including Stone Forest Tianqi Hospital are preparing entire floors of beds for quake victims. The hospital said it had been preparing more than 200 beds taking up three floors since Monday.

Located on Sichuan's southern border and home to a large Sichuanese population, Yunnan has made significant contributions to the relief effort.

According to Kunming media, as of 2:00 pm on Wednesday the entire province had donated nearly 370 million yuan (US$53 million) in goods and more than 338 million yuan in cash to the cause. Yunnan schools are also accepting children from Sichuan whose schools were destroyed or damaged in the 8.0 magnitude quake.

Image: clzg.cn

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China is home to an estimated 85,000 dams nationwide, more than 40 percent of the world's total. A large portion of those are in southwest China, especially Sichuan and Yunnan, whose rivers have their headwaters in neighboring Tibet.

Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake in northern Sichuan province highlights one of the vulnerabilities and inherent risks of China's prolific dambuilding in its southwest. Major rivers include the Jinsha, Nu and Lancang rivers, the headwaters of the Yangtze, Salween and Mekong rivers, respectively.

Sichuan's Tulong and Zipingpu reservoirs suffered damage from the quake, endangering the downstream city of Dujiangyan and its 500,000 residents, according to a Reuters report citing a local official.

According to the report, Sichuan's Yuzui levee, the linchpin of the Dujiangyan system, has also sustained damage from the quake, with cracks appearing. China's Ministry of Water Resources said the cracks were not serious.

In addition to Sichuan, the ministry has sent teams to the regions of Yunnan, Chongqing, Gansu and Shaanxi to assess earthquake-related damage to local dams. The majority of Yunnan's dams are far from Kunming and other major metropolitan areas within the province.

Xinhua quoted Water Resources Minister Chen Lei as saying that "local governments should monitor (dam) projects, to discover and repair damage as soon as possible. In case of danger, make sure to transport people to safer places."

Newer dam projects are tending to be larger than before, such as the Xiluodu Power Station, a dam that is being built on the Jinsha River between Sichuan and Yunnan. The hydropower project is scheduled for completion in 2015 and will be China's second-largest dam after the Three Gorges project.

Image: biaoshu.com

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