Mass food poisoning hits China workers

About 400 Chinese construction workers are being treated in hospital after falling ill from food poisoning.

The mass poisoning is being sourced to a construction site canteen.

According to workers, the canteen served the same leftovers each day until they were finished.

The workers - from Yangtze River Construction - were building a new plant for South Korean electronics giant Samsung in Suzhou city in China's eastern Jiangsu province.

The men were all suffering from vomiting, stomach aches and fever.

"We are human too. How can they treat us like this," said one worker.

Preliminary investigations by the police and Centre for Disease Control ruled it was food poisoning, according to the Beijing Times newspaper.

Historic problem

Food poisoning in China normally peaks in the summer months when food is not adequately protected from the heat.

On Friday, 60 students from Yangzhou University were hospitalised, complaining of vomiting and dizziness, in a suspected food poisoning case.

About 140 people died from food poisoning in the country in 2002, but figures are declining year-on-year, according to the Chinese Government.

Cases of food poisoning in China are not always caused naturally

Deliberate poisonings have also been reported.

Chinese police arrested the head of a nursery school on suspicion of poisoning 70 children and two teachers at a rival school last November.

The man had opened his own school one month prior to the attack but was reportedly jealous of his rival's success.

There was another mass poisoning in September by a restaurant owner who was said to be envious of his business rivals in the eastern city of Nanjing.