By Paul Davies and Andrew Westgate
On Sunday, China Central Television (CCTV), the country’s state-run broadcast network, aired a report claiming that nearly 500 students apparently developed illnesses (including leukemia) at a school built on contaminated land. Of the 2,451 students that attend Changzhou Foreign Languages School in Jiangsu Province, 493 (one in five) were diagnosed with diseases including dermatitis, bronchitis, white blood cell deficiencies, and in a few cases, lymphoma or leukemia. The school, which opened last year, is located one block from a plot that was home to three chemical plants which were relocated in 2010. An investigative report from the financial journal Caixin quoted a former employee of one of the companies stating that it had buried toxic waste at the site, and regularly dumped waste into a river that flows into the Yangtze. Samples taken in 2012 show concentrations of chlorobenzene (a component of herbicides) 94,799 times greater than national groundwater standards, in addition to contamination with other toxic chemicals and heavy metals.
The report has received considerable attention on the internet, with a “contaminated school” discussion thread on social media chat site Weibo attracting 30 million views and 76,000 comments within a day after the report aired on CCTV. Reports state that parents across the country are concerned that such incidents could happen anywhere in China. In response to the report, the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated that it “attached great importance to the matter” and the Changzhou city government stated that it has “zero tolerance” for pollution, and will be taking prompt action.
Though overshadowed for many years by air and water issues, soil pollution has attracted increasing focus in China, particularly following a separate Caixin investigation which revealed that rice grown in Hunan, China’s top rice-producing province, was contaminated with cadmium. In 2014, a government survey conducted between 2006 and 2011 was released showing that one fifth of China’s agricultural land is contaminated. Lan Hong, a professor at Renmin University’s School of Environment and Natural Resources observed that “China has entered its Love Canal era.”