163 Confirmed Deaths From Lead Poisoning In Northern Nigeria, Though Full Toll Of Episode Unknown

[hatrack]

Bareta, Nigeria (CNN) -- In remote northern Nigeria, it is now a race against time to prevent a catastrophe in the world's worst-ever recorded outbreak of lead poisoning. Officially 163 people have already died in Zamfara state -- 111 of them children. But no one knows the true figures.

"You read about it in the literature but several hundred children have died here as a result of what happened here," says Ian von Lindern from the environmental engineering organization the Blacksmith Institute, which is heading the clean-up operation in the region. Children began to die in January, but only now in June has the clean-up operation begun in the mud-hut village of Dareta.

Using the only tools available -- crude metal hoes normally used for farming -- local villagers are trying to clear the contaminated topsoil from the worst-affected housing compounds. Dug up, the soil is put into plastic bags and buried far from the village. Young children look on as their friends and family wear unfamiliar white protective suits and face masks. And they inhale more of the stirred-up dust.

The U.S.-based Blacksmith Institute -- a global leader in pollution clean-up operations -- has found disturbingly high levels of lead across the village. "The fact that this is 10,000 parts per million -- which is 1 percent lead -- that's very high," explains Casey Bartram of the Blacksmith Institute. In the U.S., the standard for residential-area soils is normally 400 parts per million. "Because lead particles are so small, the levels so high, and because in this environment the kids are always in contact with the soil -- it's extremely dangerous for them to be exposed to levels like these," says Bartram.

EDIT

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/06/13/nigeria.lead.clean.up/

[phantom power]

1. "I tell you that the problem has now been contained and we are now on remediation"