One child died and 20 others were hospitalized after they were sickened by a highly toxic rat poison in a south China village nursery school, an official said Wednesday.

Among seven serious cases, three were in intensive care and four others had been out of critical condition at the Guigang People's Hospital, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said Qin Mingda, a Guigang City official.

The poisoning occurred at around 3:40 p.m. Monday in the Wenda Kindergarten in Huangshi Village in the Gangnan district of Guigang, said Ge Xianmin, head of the poisoning emergency treatment center of Guangxi.

Twenty-one babies aged two to five, were sickened by a rodenticide named "Dushuqiang" in Chinese, which is widely used in the country's rural areas to get rid of rats, Ge said.

One toddler died on the way to hospital. All the sickened babies were being treated in the Guigang People's Hospital.

Authorities are investigating the incident.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2009)