By Quentin Sommerville
BBC News, Beijing
**Officials in central China plan to relocate 15,000 residents after more than 1,000 children tested positive for lead poisoning, state media say.**Zhao Suping, mayor of Jiyuan city in Henan province, said the relocation would cost 1bn yuan ($146m), the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The residents live in about 10 villages around China’s biggest lead smelter in Jiyuan.
Toxic emissions from the plant have been blamed for poisoning the children.
The children were moved away last week, and now the local government says a total of 15,000 people will be relocated.
The cost of the move will be borne by the lead company.
The factory will keep operating, with its owners paying farmers to rent the land surrounding their plant, setting up an exclusion zone for nearby villages.
Villagers say the government has not acted quickly enough to address their concerns - no timetable has been set for the relocation.
The poisoning in Henan is the latest in a series of toxic accidents that have left thousands of children sick across China.
In some parts of the country, factories can pollute at will.
As large contributors of local taxes, Communist officials often overlook the damage that China’s rapid industrialisation does to the local population.