The plaintiffs, named Gong and her mother Zhuang, claimed they had been suffering from health-threatening formaldehyde in an apartment they bought from a local real estate company, the Xiamen Wild Mountains Real Estate Corporation.

Gong, a Xiamen citizen, bought the apartment for over 540,000 yuan (US$65,000) in May, 2001. Shortly after she moved in, she began to suffer a poor vision, nausea and even a swollen face. Doctors attributed her symptoms to pollution.

Subsequent surveys by the local environment monitoring authority showed the apartment was "uninhabitable", due to its high levels of formaldehyde.

Gong and her mother requested the defendant remove all the indoor decorations and claimed over 460,000 yuan (US$55,000) in compensation for their economic losses and mental damage.

The case is now under further investigation at the local court.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that the highest air pollution exposure occurs indoors as nearly one billion people, mostly women and children, are regularly exposed to levels of indoor air pollution exceeding WHO guidelines by 100 times.

(Xinhua News Agency June 17, 2002)