Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-k5phx8Xnk
{O/C} In India, authorities are dealing with one of deadliest outbreaks of food poisoning in years.
At least 23 children have died and dozens remain hospitalised after eating food contaminated with a pesticide used to kill insects.
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Within minutes of eating a meal of rice and potato curry, children at a school in Mashrakh village of Chapra began to fall sick two days ago.
Also ill from eating the food is the cook at the centre of the food poisoning outbreak who admits the cooking oil she used looked highly suspect.
This sickened child says students never made it home as so many fainted on their way back.
Opposition parties say more lives could have been saved had the Janata Dal party-led government responded sooner to what was clearly a life-and-death situation.
Dozens of angry people took to the streets, pelting a police station with stones, setting ablaze buses and other vehicles and shouting slogans denouncing the state government.
{Soundbite} RAJIV PRATAP RUDY, BJP Party: The doctors have been saying that if this evacuation which is about 80 kilometres from Patna had we taken, of course, done in time many lives could have been saved.
While the majority of the ill are recovering slowly, officials fear the death toll may go up as a number of children remain in critical condition, battling for their lives.
Autopsy reports on the children who've died so far confirm they were poisoned by insecticide.
Investigators are now trying to determine if the insecticide was mixed in the food accidentally or intentionally.
What they do find suspect is that the school's headmistress fled right after the tainted food deaths. In spite of the cook's complaint that the cooking oil smelled foul, the headmistress insisted on its use.
A manhunt has been launched to nab the school's principal as well as her husband who supplied the groceries.
Sonya Artero TVB news.
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