[wmhardware]

More than 250 workers at a South Korean garment firm in Tien Giang Province were hospitalized with food poisoning after eating lunch at the company on Monday.

The workers at Dream Mekong, a subsidiary of the C&H International Trading South Korea, a garment and stuffed-toy maker, vomited and even suffered seizures before being rushed to hospital, Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted doctors as saying.

Nguyen Minh Thu, one of affected workers, said: “The factory changed the cook today. The rice was very hard to eat and the fish was stinking.” A small number of workers who did not eat were safe.

More than 200 workers were still at the hospitals by evening. In 2010 a similar bout of food poisoning at the company sent more than 200 workers to hospital and another one in 2001 affected more than 400 of them.

Local health officials have taken food samples and are investigating.