China's toxic school: officials struggle to contain uproar over sick students

Illnesses ranging from nosebleeds to leukaemia among pupils at Changzhou Foreign Languages School, with highly toxic illegal waste dumping blamed

Environmental activists in China are calling for new laws and an independent investigation into how hundreds of Chinese students fell ill - in some cases severely - after attending a school built on a toxic waste dump.

In a case that is being compared to one of the worst environmental catastrophes in US history, about 500 students at a school in the eastern province of Jiangsu have reportedly been affected since late 2015 by ailments including nosebleeds, headaches, coughs, rashes and, in the worst instances, lymphoma and leukaemia.