HEFEI - The environmental protection department of Anhui province announced on Friday that the province is suffering severe problems of heavy metal emissions.

Among the 48 enterprises emitting heavy metal pollutants that were inspected in Anhui during the second quarter of this year, 18 of them violate the law of environmental protection and 10 of them illegally process heavy metal emissions, noted Wang Wenyou, deputy director of the provincial department of environmental protection.

The department has started supervising six enterprises that emit excessive heavy metal pollutants, Wang said at a press conference on Friday. Three of them, Huifeng Power Pack Company in Sixian County, Suzhou, Huipu Metal Material Company in Qingyang, Guichi and Meida Electric Equipment Company in Huangshan, are involved with excessive lead pollution, which is likely to affect the water quality of the area and cause diseases to local residents.

While the enterprises were forced to stop production and urged to improve their pollutant processing system, residents living in nearby areas are already suffering from the water pollution caused by the factories.

Last month, over a hundred children in Sixian county, Suzhou of Anhui showed typical symptoms of lead poisoning.

Parents noticed that their children tend to be severely emaciated, anxious, fretful and unwilling to eat. Some of them, under the age of three, remained thin and short and were suffered from a fever.

Medical examination result in local hospitals showed that all of them are suffering various degrees of lead poisoning.

Qiu Jia, one aged a half, was among them. His examination result shows that his lead-blood proportion was 207ug/L, twice of the normal lead-blood proportion for children, which is under 99ug/L.

Most local residents believe that this is due to the excessive lead pollution from the Huifeng Power Pack Company, located in the development zone of Sixian county, which is one the six supervised companies by the environmental protection department.

"Most workshops in the factory are heavily lead polluted, and high lead-blood proportion is quite common among workers," a female worker was quoted in a report by the www.anhuinews.com.

Her blood lead proportion was over 200ug/L when she resigned from the factory.

For another worker who is still working in the factory, his lead-blood proportion has reached 400ug/L.

The factory has been warned several times over heavy metal pollution, yet continues production. It was supervised by the State Environmental Protection Administration for polluting nearby rivers and stopped processing heavy metal pollutants in 2007.

All the 48 enterprises have been forced to stop production and fined. They are urged to improve their pollutant processing systems before they resume production.