34 Vietnamese kids poisoned after playing with Chinese toy bombs

• 84 kids hospitalized with food poisoning after lunch at Vietnam kindergarten

Education authorities in the Mekong Delta of Kien Giang have issued warnings about a Chinese exploding toy product after many students were sickened by the gas it released.

Hoang Huu Thinh, a spokesman of the province’s education department, said 34 students at a primary school were hospitalized with headache and breathing difficulty after playing with the toy known as “stink bomb” last week.

They were discharged after recovering but some developed the symptoms again and had to be sent back to hospital on Wednesday.

Kien Giang’s health department has ruled out the cause of food poisoning and concluded that the children were sickened by the gas from the toy, which 20 of them inhaled directly.

Health officials have called for a recall of the product while the education department has asked all schools to hang up notices warning its students of the danger. The toy has been sold widely in front of schools in the area. It is not clear if the product was imported legally.

The toy is essentially a bag of pink liquid and a bag of a white powder glued together. When squeezed or thrown to the ground, the product will explode like a small bomb.

Vietnam police first warned about the toy in 2014.

Tests at the crime lab at the Ministry of Public Security, following an explosion of the toy that injured 39 schoolchildren in the Central Highlands, found that it emitted a very large amount of carbon dioxide.

One of the bags contained food additive sodium bicarbonate and the other citric acid. When the acid bag busts, the liquid interacts with the sodium compound and produce an amount of carbon dioxide that causes the explosion.

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