Cancer deaths haunt village

More than 40 people have died of cancer in barely 10 years in a small village in southern Guangdong Province.

The cause of the shockingly high death rate is still unknown, reported Shenzhen Daily Wednesday, citing the Southern Metropolitan News as the news source.

Longdou Village, 60 kilometers south of Leizhou City, has a population of 800. According to the report, the villagers had enjoyed health for hundreds of years until the early 1990s.

During the past 10 years, the villagers have been living under the shadow of getting the unexplained illness which more often than not causes death. People frequently fall ill, and most look pale and haggard. A woman seldom weighes more than 55 kilograms and a man seldom more than 60kg.

The situation is particularly serious for the elderly, whose life expectancy is shockingly short in a well-to-do area.

There are less than 20 people aged above 60.

More than 60 people died of serious diseases in the past 10 years, and more than 40 died of cancer.

One of the victims, Chen Dang, died of liver caner at the age of 30 in 2001. A few months later, his parents both died of the same disease, leaving his 8-year-old daughter alone.

An investigation showed that the drinking water piped from the four wells in the village failed to meet national standards, and could be a possible cause of the sicknesses. However, some experts doubted the theory because the water has been used for generations.

The report said the well water has an unusually high iron content and has a bitter taste. Villagers using the water to cook rice said the cooked rice would turn sour in just two hours.

Chen Zhi, a local farmer who pipes water to irrigate his 0.26-hectare rice field, said he an output of merely 200 kilograms. Livestock drinking the water also grow slowly, he said.

Authorities have conducted another investigations in June but the cause seems elusive, the report said.

Source: Shenzhen Daily