PATNA, India — The children started falling violently ill soon after they ate the free school lunch of rice, lentils, soybeans and potatoes.
The food,
part of a program that gives poor Indian students at least one hot meal
a day, was tainted with insecticide, and soon 22 of the students were
dead and dozens were hospitalized, officials said Wednesday.
It was
not immediately clear how chemicals ended up in the food at the school
in the eastern state of Bihar. One official said that the food may not
have been properly washed before it was cooked.
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The
children, between the ages of 5 and 12, got sick soon after eating lunch
Tuesday in Gandamal village in Masrakh block, 80 kilometers (50 miles)
north of the state capital of Patna. School authorities immediately
stopped serving the meal as the children started vomiting.
Savita, a
12-year-old student who uses only one name, said she had a stomach ache
after eating soybeans and potatoes and started vomiting.
"I don't
know what happened after that," Savita said in an interview at Patna
Medical College Hospital, where she and many other children were
recovering.
The lunch was cooked in the school kitchen.
The children were rushed to a local hospital and later to Patna for treatment, said state official Abhijit Sinha.
In
addition to the 22 children who died, another 25 children and the school
cook were in hospital undergoing treatment, P.K. Sahi, the state
education minister. Three children were in serious condition.
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