MASS POISONING IN STAVROPOL TERRITORY








STAVROPOL, MARCH 3, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondent Valery Oliyanchuk/ -- Two hundred and fifty-six people, including 159  children, have poisoned in the hamlet of Chernolesskaya,  Stavropol territory (North Caucasus). One hundred and twenty of them (including 82 children) are in hospital. 


	Mass poisoning is the result of the leakage of technical  waste into the local water-supply system. 


	The emergency session of the territorial council on economic and social security was convened at Chernolesskaya last Friday.  It was stated at the session that all the necessary things were  available for the treatment of patients and specialists from the territorial health center were helping local doctors. 


	There are no grave cases; all the patients have dysentery. 


	It was stressed at the same time that the water-supply  systems of Chernolesskaya and many other towns and hamlets needed serious repairs to prevent industrial and cattle-breeding farm  waste from getting into them. 


	The prosecutor's office has launched a legal case in  connection with mass poisoning of people.