On September 12th, students and teachers at Chaoyang Middle School in Yanzhou District, Jining City, Shandong Province, experienced symptoms of vomiting and abdominal pain, suspected to be food poisoning. According to official reports, 138 people were hospitalized for observation and treatment, all described as having “mild symptoms,” sparking doubts among parents. However, parents who visited the hospital reported seeing hundreds of students hospitalized for treatment.
Some parents claimed that the school threatened them, saying that if they posted videos online, their children would be expelled. On September 12th, a video posted by a netizen showed a large number of students and teachers in a hospital in Jining, Shandong, suspected of food poisoning. The video depicted crowded hospital rooms with students lying on beds, sitting in chairs receiving IV drips, and others on wheelchairs waiting for examinations. Parents said that their children suffered food poisoning from hamburgers delivered from an external vendor.
One parent revealed that the school ordered 3100 hamburgers from a small workshop, requested on the 10th and delivered on the 12th. When the workshop couldn’t meet the demand, they started processing the hamburgers on the 10th, exposing them to room temperature for three days without refrigeration. As a result, on the 12th at noon, 3100 students who ate the hamburgers experienced symptoms such as vomiting, abdominal pain, fainting, and fever.
On September 13th, the joint disposal working group in Yanzhou District of Jining, Shandong, reported that on the morning of September 12th, “some teachers and students” in Chaoyang School started experiencing symptoms of abdominal pain and vomiting and were sent for medical diagnosis and treatment. As of 10 pm on September 12th, “138 people were being observed and treated in the hospital, all with mild symptoms.” However, the report did not specify the exact number of students affected by food poisoning.
The official report has been criticized for downplaying the situation. According to several parents, the number of affected students and the severity of symptoms are far greater than what has been officially reported. Many parents and students took to social media to express their concerns, with messages such as, “My son just finished receiving IV drips at the hospital, several children have been admitted to the ICU, and the hospitals in Yanzhou are overwhelmed. It takes four to five hours even just for a drip.”
Some parents claimed that the school’s notification was untimely after the incident and that they attempted to cover up the truth, threatening parents not to “spread the news.” Videos released by parents showed a heavy police presence near the school and the hospital, with multiple police cars and even special police vehicles, suggesting prevention against potential “group incidents.”
This is the second collective student poisoning incident in China within two days. On September 11th, 94 students at the primary school division of the Huamei Experimental School in Lufeng Puning, Shanwei City, Guangdong Province, suffered food poisoning, with 85 students returning home or to school while nine remain hospitalized for observation. Parents of the students claimed that the school concealed the facts and even disbanded parent groups.
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