The fate of a girl and her grandmother who came down with acute radiation sickness from an unidentified source has caused great concern among local people in Harbin.

Doctors from the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University said that both Xu Hong, the girl, and her grandmother Jiang Xumei were suffering from the disease in their bone marrow.

Xu Hong, 13, lives with her 81-year-old grandma in the first floor of an old apartment complex. Both were infected by something in a boiler room near the house that has still not officially been identified. They were sent to hospital on Friday.

The girl's parents have just moved into a new house in a different location and do not visit the grandmother's home very often - yet even they had symptoms such as aching and nausea.

They have not been treated in hospital but have taken some traditional Chinese medicine.

"The number of blood platelets and leucocytes in the four people is at an obvious decline compared with a normal person, especially the girl and her grandmother," said Wang Shuye, deputy director of the hospital's blood medical department.

"The girl's marrow has lost the ability to produce new blood and the only way to cure it is for her to have a complete marrow transplant," he said.

At the moment the pair are being kept alive with blood platelet transfusions.

The radiation source has been narrowed down to a boiler room next to the house.

According to the girl's father, Xu Yuanhai, there was a metal object wrapped in a plastic bag lying in the corner of the boiler room.

Reports have come in that a child living nearby had picked up the object from beneath an electric pylon and put it in the boiler room. He is not said to be ill.

Xu Hong often studies on the balcony in front of the boiler room, so she was hit with most of the radiation, said Xu.

He said they did not realize how serious the problem was until her hand began to bloat and her grandma started coughing up blood.

The object has been removed by workers from the Harbin Radiation Management Department.

Jiang Songqi from the department said the object had been sealed up safely and the environment near the house was already normal.

"It radiates a kind of gamma ray and is very strong," he said.

But he was unwilling to say exactly what the object is or where it came from.

(China Daily July 18, 2005)