China orders police probe into mass poisonings

Beijing (Agencies): China's top leaders have ordered police to investigate a mass poisoning in the eastern city of Nanjing that is believed to have killed scores of people, many of them middle school students.

Government officials and hospitals on Sunday refused to give an account of deaths in the poisonings, which were traced to a snack shop in Tangshan county, a rural district of Nanjing city.

More than 200 people had been poisoned and "a number" had died, according to reports in the government-controlled media.

Newspapers in Hong Kong put the death toll as at least 41 and possibly as high as 100.

It wasn't clear if the poisonings were intentional or a result of spoiled food.

Chinese authorities held the boss of a fast food restaurant for questioning on Sunday as they investigated a food poisoning outbreak that state media said killed 41 people and put hundreds more in hospital.

Locals in Tangshan estimated more than 100 people had died after eating breakfast snacks at a branch of the Heshengyuan Soy Milk' chain.

Reports said victims became sick after eating fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and glutinous rice bought at a branch of the Heshengyuan Soybean Milk Shop. Most of the victims were students at the nearby Zuochang Middle School and migrant construction workers. School officials refused to answer questions.

Peng Yongqing, who owns a store next to the tiny Heshengyuan outlet — now closed — on the main thoroughfare through Tangshan, said he saw one elderly man collapse after eating breakfast there on Saturday.

"It happened right there in front of my store," he told Reuters. "One minute he was sitting there eating and the next he stood up and keeled over. We all thought he was choking, we had no idea what was wrong."

The man died on the way to hospital, said Peng.

Government broadcaster China Central Television in a news program showed ambulances and military vehicles racing victims to the hospital, where many were being treated in hallways and reception areas. Children were shown lying two or three to a bed, while other victims included an elderly man and people in military fatigues.

Somber relatives stood and squatted in groups outside the Nanjing People's Liberation Army General Hospital, awaiting news of their loved ones. Police guarded entrances and checked identification cards of those entering the main patient ward.

The Communist Party's national headquarters in Beijing and China's Cabinet have ordered health officials and investigators to Nanjing. Police must make "the most strenuous efforts" to uncover the cause of the poisonings, official newspapers said.

People who answered phones at hospitals where victims were sent all refused to say how many had died, citing a city Health Bureau order not to provide information to journalists.

Fearful of social unrest, Chinese authorities tightly -control access to information on crime, fires, poisonings, worker protests and other such incidents.