An unlicensed battery plant just a few steps from a densely-populated community in east China's Anhui Province, was to blame for lead poisoning that hospitalized 28 children, the local government said Thursday.

Borui Battery Co. Ltd., which is separated from Xinshan Community in Gaohe Town only by a narrow road, produced excessive lead pollution that put local children's health at risk, the Huaining County government said in a press release.

Three children from Xinshan Community were found to have abnormally high levels of lead in their blood at the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital in Hefei, the capital, on Dec. 24, it said.

In a subsequent government-sponsored checkup on 280 children, more than 200 were diagnosed with high blood lead levels.

The children, from nine months to 16 years old, suffered from moderate to severe lead poisoning with more than 250 microgrammes of lead per liter of blood, said Cheng Bangning, deputy director of the Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital's micro-elements testing laboratory.

The county's environmental protection bureau found after scrutiny that Borui Battery had caused the lead poisoning. It noted that the company had not passed the necessary environmental checks and had been operating illegally.

The local government has shut down Borui and another battery plant near the community following the incident.

China's environmental protection authorities rule, however, that no battery plant should be built within a radius of 500 meters from residential communities.

Excessive amounts of lead in the blood can damage the digestive, nervous, and reproductive systems and cause stomach aches, anemia and convulsions.

Battery manufacturing plants are often blamed for lead poisoning in children.

In July last year, four children living near a battery plant in east China's Jiangsu Province were found to be suffering from lead poisoning.

A similar incident was reported in South China's Guangdong Province in December 2009, where at least 25 children living nearby a battery plant were found to have excessive lead levels in their bloods.