A suffocation incident occurred on Wednesday in a corn processing mill in Xingping village of Wutai County in north China’s Shanxi Province, resulting in seven deaths.

According to local authorities, preliminary investigations found that the victims had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The incident commenced on Tuesday evening when an individual with the last name Shan accessed the feeding pit of a drying facility within the mill, which had been non-operational since the start of this year.

Contact with Shan was subsequently lost.

Afterwards, six people entered the pit in a rescue attempt, but it was believed that all were poisoned.

They were subsequently evacuated from the premises and promptly transported to the hospital by firefighters and rescue personnel, yet regrettably, they did not survive.

(Xinhua/NAN)