A deliberate crime is one possibility considered by investigators as they look into the outbreak, which struck Saturday at a breakfast outlet near Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, according to an official.

"We can't rule out that someone poisoned the food," Zhou Qiang, a spokesman for the Jiangsu provincial government, told Nampa-AFP.

The state-run China Daily Monday said initial investigations had suggested there was rat poison in the food served to the victims.

Previous reports said 41 people had died as a result of the food poisoning, while Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper Monday put the death toll at more than 100.

The fatalities began Saturday morning in Tangshan township near Nanjing, after locals ate breakfast snacks such as fried dough sticks, sesame cakes and glutinous rice.

Doctors treating the victims said the symptoms were consistent with those for people exposed to rat poison, the paper said.

Rumors were circulating the massive food poisoning could be the result of a crime, local residents told Nampa-AFP previously.

China's official Xinhua news agency has reported more than 200 people were poisoned from eating the food, served from the Heshengyuan Soybean Milk Shop.

But Zhou, the provincial spokesman, Monday told Nampa-AFP that over 300 people had sought treatment at local hospitals.

On the other hand, the number of deaths was not as large as suggested in some media, he said.

"It's definitely less than a hundred," he said. "Actually the official figure at present doesn't even exceed 40."

He said it was hard to get a firm grasp of the number of people affected, since some had gone home, rather than to hospital, after being poisoned.

Among the dead were students from the Zuoguang Middle School and from the East Lake Lidao area, as well as construction workers, reports said.

The soybean milk shop has been shut down and the owner has been taken into custody for questioning, the China Daily reported.

Those hit with food poisoning were sent to 10 local hospitals for emergency treatment, and 500 medical personnel had been mobilized to tend to them, the China Daily said.

"It is really unbearable to see the young children dying right before my eyes and their parents crying desperately," one doctor said according to the paper.

As hundreds of family members were waiting for news about their loved ones, doctors warned that many remained in critical condition.

"The poisoned will not be out of danger for another 72 hours," a doctor told the paper. "We are watching them non-stop."

Some patients only lightly affected by the poisoning had already been allowed to leave hospital, said Zhou, the spokesman.

Mass food poisonings are not infrequent in China, and they are occasionally the acts of criminals or individuals seeking revenge.

Ninety-two primary schoolchildren in central Hunan province fell sick in January after their school lunch was laced with rat poison.

In March last year, 100 primary students in the western region of Xinjiang were rushed to hospital after eating a breakfast laced with rat poison, later found to have been placed by one of the teachers.

ph/rcw Nampa-AFP WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 160520)

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