Contaminated pickles kill 6 in northern Japan

TOKYO (AFP) - Six people have died after eating pickles contaminated with E. coli bacteria in northern Japan, officials said on Sunday, in the country's deadliest mass food poisoning in 10 years.

A total of 103 others have been made ill after eating the same lightly pickled Chinese cabbage produced in late July by a company in the city of Sapporo, according to health bulletins issued by the local government.

Of the dead, five were elderly people who ate the pickles at nursing homes in Sapporo and in another city on Hokkaido island.

A four-year-old girl died on Aug 11, five days after developing symptoms of E. coli poisoning, an official at Sapporo's public health centre said.