BEIJING — China detained two factory officials after 1,300 children were poisoned by pollution from a manganese-processing plant, state media said Thursday, days after emissions from a lead smelter in another province sickened hundreds.
Both cases have sparked unrest and come amid growing anger in China over public-safety scandals in which children have been the main victims. Tainted infant formula and the mass collapse of schools in a huge earthquake last year also have provoked widespread dissent.
The latest incident involves the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping township, central Hunan province. It opened in May 2008 without the approval of the local environmental-protection bureau and within 500 yards of a primary school, a middle school and a kindergarten.
Fears of poisoning began to spread among villagers in early July, when many children became susceptible to colds and suffered fevers and other ailments, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Some 1,354 children who live near the plant — or nearly 70 percent of those tested — were found to have excessive manganese levels in their blood, Xinhua said. Such poisoning can damage the nervous system.
Local authorities shut down the smelter last week and detained two of its executives on suspicion of “causing severe environmental pollution,” Xinhua said.
Earlier this week, villagers in Shaanxi, another rural province in central China, clashed with police as they protested the operations of the Dong ling Lead and Zinc Smelting Co. in the town of Changqing. They also stoned trucks trying to deliver coal to the plant.
That unrest came after at least 615 out of 731 children in two villages near that smelter tested positive for lead poisoning.
Children from six other villages there are now being tested.
Lead poisoning can damage the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and memory loss.
Children’s health can be a particularly volatile issue in China, where most families are restricted to having just one child.
