Some 30 schoolchildren were treated for food poisoning in the Mon State town of Bilin on Wednesday.

Bilin MP Thiri Yadanar told DVB that the students were taken to a local hospital after they began feeling nauseous and vomiting.

“It started in the morning when a couple children threw up,” she said. “Then more and more pupils started falling ill, and by the afternoon the schoolteachers got panicked and took action.”

She said many of the children who fell ill said they had rice and steamed yellow beans for breakfast. The local health department has sent samples of the beans and vomit to a lab for diagnosis.

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The 30 infected cases represent about half of the 60 students at Muthin High School.

Bilin, which lies approximately equidistant between Rangoon and Mon State capital Moulmein, is just the latest in a series of food poisoning cases across Burma. July is the peak month of monsoon season, a time when wells and water supplies often overflow and/or become infected.