A Chinese mother carries her baby for his first hair trim, along a street in Beijing on September 15

One needs to look no further than the river that runs through Shangba to understand the extent of the heavy metals pollution that experts say has turned the hamlets in this region of southern China into cancer villages.

“All the fish died, even chickens and ducks that drank from the river died. If you put your leg in the water, you’ll get rashes and a terrible itch,” said He Shuncai, a 34-year-old rice farmer who has lived in Shangba all his life.

“Last year alone, six people in our village died from cancer and they were in their 30s and 40s.”

Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in southern Guangdong Province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices.

Every year, an estimated 460,000 people die prematurely in China due to exposure to air and water pollution, according to a 2007 World Bank study.

The number of newborns with birth defects in many parts of China is rising rapidly as women have children later in life and environmental pollution takes its toll.

In Beijing, the rate of physical abnormalities - such as congenital heart defects or cleft lips - last year was 170 per 10,000 births, nearly twice the rate recorded in 1997, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Quoting the Beijing municipal health bureau, the report said the higher rate was the result of better diagnostic techniques and monitoring capabilities, as well as women having children later in life.

Environmental pollution could also be contributing to the problem, the report quoted the authoritative Caijing business magazine as saying.

“Chemical and toxic emissions impact the health of the parents, so it is likely they also impact the health of an unborn baby,” Ren Aiguo, director of the reproductive health institute at Peking University, was quoted as saying.

Source: Reuters, AFP