A total of 49 people are confirmed dead in the food poisoning case
in a town near east China's Nanjing city.
Sources with the municipal government told CRI that most of the
fatalities were children; two soldiers were also among the dead.
The authorities have yet to announce an official death toll.
Initial investigations in Nanjing point to a commonly-used rat
poison as the most likely cause of the incident on Saturday, which
has caused an undetermined number of deaths.
Zhou Qiang, an information official with the Jiangsu provincial
government, says the poison could have been deliberately put into
the food by someone. Public security authorities are still looking
into the case. Police were questioning the manager of a company
that supplied food to the shop.
On
the morning of September 14, over 200 people - largely students and
migrant workers - were poisoned after eating fried dough sticks,
sesame cakes and glutinous rice in a restaurant in Tangshan Town.
The victims are reported to be in a stable condition.
Local hospitals began treating the sick immediately after the
accident occurred. The provincial and municipal governments
demanded that every effort be made to save the victims.
(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2002)
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