At least 20 villages along the middle reaches of the Shaying River, the largest branch of the heavily polluted Huaihe River, have been plagued by cancer for more than 10 years.

According to investigations by Huo Daishan, director of the research center of the Huaihe River environment, the number of cancer patients is increasing in more than 20 villages in Shenqiu County of central China's Henan Province alone.

Huangmengying, a village of 2,400 people in the county, has seen 114 deaths caused by cancer in the past 14 years. On September 1 alone, three villagers died of the disease, following five cancer-related deaths since July 1. Another 10 villagers have been diagnosed with cancer.

Wang Linsheng, an official with Huangmengying, said that more and more people there began to suffer from colonitis, rectum cancer or esophageal cancer since the water in the Shaying River turned dark and odorous in the 1990s.

Kong Heqin, a rectum cancer patient for four years, said that she had been feeling sick ever since she married and moved to Huangmengying 10 years ago.

"I never went to hospital before my marriage," she said. "But now, I've borrowed nearly 70,000 yuan (US$8,434) to pay for my disease. I would have committed suicide long ago if someone would have cared for my two children."

Villagers call the 200-meter-long street where Kong lives "cancer street." Six residents there died of cancer in recent years, and two others currently suffer from the disease.

Although Shenqiu is one of China's most impoverished counties, sales of barreled purified water in the village flourished.

Li Hua, manager of a grocer, sells dozens of barrels each day. But he fails to benefit much from the booming sales.

"It is very hard for the low-income farmers here to afford purified water every day. They often buy water on credit and delay the payment for a long time," he said.

Purified water means life or death to the 26-year-old Meng Qingkun, who got spondylitis, an inflammation of the vertebrae, in 2002. Doctors told him to move out the village because his disease was caused by the heavy metals in the drinking water. But Meng chose to stay where he is for he has lost ability to work and "spent all his money on purified water."

China has spent huge sums of money in the past 10 years in an effort to relieve and prevent severe pollution in the Huaihe River, but little progress has been made.

Liu Jiaqiang, director of the Environmental Protection Bureau with Shenqiu County, said that groundwater in all the 21 towns in Shenqiu has been polluted by the Shaying River, which receives vast amounts of sewage from the cities along its upper reaches.

Thanks to Huo and his fellow staff's efforts, the regional government undertook an investigation in July and has allocated funds to dig a deep well for the village.