Twenty-eight people remained hospitalized yesterday after a leak of poisonous sulfur dioxide occurred in the morning at a chemical plant in east China's Jiangsu Province, local authorities said.

Li Fengqin (right), 76, receives treatment at the hospital after inhaling sulfur dioxide leaked from a chemical plant in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, on Thursday. [Photo/China Daily]

The gas leak at the plant in Zhenjiang City sent a total of 68 workers and residents to the hospital.

A sulfur dioxide leak from the plant of Jiangsu Sopo Group Co Ltd was detected around 10am when several residents in Jianbi Town smelled a strong odor and had difficulty breathing.

Preliminary investigation showed workers didn't replace an alkali solution in the exhaust suction equipment in time and caused a small amount of sulfur dioxide to leak for five minutes, the Zhenjiang Environmental Protection Bureau said.

The company's general manager, Song Qinhua, posted a public apology on a local online forum at 2:56pm, blaming the incident on "a serious human error" when workers didn't check the equipment carefully before it started.

"We will conduct a further probe into the cause and will severely punish the people involved," Song said in the letter.

Environmental officials who went to the area after the incident set up seven monitoring stations in the surrounding area to detect the toxic gas.

Only two stations detected minimum pollution which is within the standards, the Zhenjiang Environmental Protection Bureau said. Sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas with a pungent, irritating smell.

The patients who remained in the hospital were under observation and were reported to be in no imminent danger.

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