Hundreds of workers get poisoning in Thanh Hoa

Patients lie on the floor of a hospital in Thanh Hoa.

After drinking water before getting to work in the early morning, many workers of the shoe factory had symptoms of poisoning such as dizziness, foaming, vomiting and fainting.
The number of workers with similar symptoms increased very quickly. The factory’s health station had to ask for assistance from the Department of Health of Thanh Hoa Province. Dozens of ambulances were sent to the factory to take workers to hospitals.Because of the incident, all hospitals in the city of Thanh Hoa were overloaded. The Hop Luc Hospital alone received up to 500 people. The lobby of the first floor and the hallways in the hospital became patient rooms. After detoxification treatment, some patients were awake but many were still unconscious. The hospital hall was in turmoil when relatives of workers came to look for their family members.

Outside the Hongfu Vietnam factory, where has about 10,000 workers, traffic was congested. Workers stopped working to go to the street. The authorities sent security forces, traffic police and mobile police to the factory to restore order.Until the early afternoon on Thursday the local Department of Health did not have the accurate number of patients of the poisoning case. An official from the health department said water samples at the company had been collected for testing.
Hongfu Vietnam is a joint venture with Taiwan that began operation in 2011, employing about 10,000 workers. In 2011, hundreds of workers of this firm were also poisoned after the lunch.

At the shoe factory.
 
Police officers were sent to the shoe factory to maintain order.
 
 A police car at the shoe factory.
 

 Traffic congestion in front of the shoe factory.
 
Dozens of ambulances were sent to the factory to take patients to the hospital.
 
Other workers stopped working.
 
The patients at a local hospital.