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103 Mexican Workers Poisoned at Taiwanese Plant
Some 103 Mexican workers at an electronics plant owned by a Taiwanese firm suffered lead and tin poisoning on Thursday after an unspecified incident, state health officials said.
All of the employees were out of danger on Thursday evening, health ministry officials from the state of Jalisco told Televisa television.
Two employees of the factory in the western city of Guadalajara, owned by Universal Scientific Industrial (USI), were seriously affected, the officials said.
Televisa quoted USI as saying that the problem was caused by the ``malfunction of an engine at the plant.'' News agency Notimex reported that faulty ventilation may have been to blame.
According to the Televisa report, witnesses said workers remained inside the factory for 12 hours after the original accident, and were not allowed to leave work until some of them began to succumb to the fumes.
Lead poisoning can cause brain, blood or lung damage.
The USI factory -- which assembles circuit boards for computers -- was set up on the outskirts of Guadalajara in 1998 and employs 1,800 people.
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