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July 4, 2014

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Birds鈥 deaths blamed on contaminated rice

RICE suspected of killing sparrows in a city in central China’s Hubei Province has been sealed before it reached the public, officials said yesterday.

The sparrows swooped on rice that spilled when it was being loaded onto a ship in Yichang on June 29. Later more than a dozen of them were found dead.

The rice from north China was bound for the southwestern city of Chongqing, but was sealed when it arrived, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Yichang government said yesterday that tests on the sparrows had found evidence of a highly-toxic insecticide, one that could be fatal to humans even in small amounts.

It denied earlier reports that no problems had been found with the rice and that it had been claimed the deaths were caused by the birds eating too much or eating food elsewhere.

China’s use of pesticides is much higher than the world average, according to Greenpeace. Besides normal crops, even traditional Chinese herbs are contaminated, it said.


 

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