It has been three weeks since the 56-year-old, who worked as a driver before liver cancer struck last year, started on his medication. He opted to undergo treatment at home as he cannot afford a hospital stay.

The drugs provide temporary relief, but are costly. His cancer is in its late stages, and he has six months to live, at most.

The family has no income now. His wife, Madam Yan Qimei, 45, quit her job as a cook to look after him. Two of their three children are still in school. From his sickbed, he pleaded: 'Please help us, our lives are at stake.'

The family is not the only one grappling with cancer in Houwanggezhuang Village in Shunyi district, 60km north-east of Beijing.

The disease has struck the small village hard in recent years, according to Mr Kong Fanguo, 35, a resident who did a count. Going house to house, he found that since 2001, cancer has struck at least 25 people, and 19 of them succumbed to the disease.

The youngest was just 23 years old.

This works out to an average of three cancer deaths every year in the village of 1,000 people - a mortality rate much higher than China's national average.

Cancer is China's top killer disease in both urban and rural areas. In 2006, the disease caused 1.3 deaths per thousand people in rural areas (the official figure is 130 deaths per 100,000). In urban areas, it was 1.44 per 1,000 people. (144.6 per 100,000).

Mr Fan's survey set villagers asking: Why have so many been hit with the disease? The victims are mostly farmers and odd-job labourers, and the disease often means a painful death or financial ruin for their families because of the high cost of treatment.

Although they have no hard proof, Mr Fan and other villagers suspect that a chemical factory located less than 10m away from the nearest home is responsible.

It produces polyacrylamides, a synthetic polymer widely used in sewage and industrial waste water treatment, and was set up in the village in 1997. Villagers blame it for polluting their air and water, and claim the incidence of cancer was never as high before its arrival.

Mr Fan's poll made news in the popular local newspaper The Beijing News. In a Jan 2 report, it called Houwanggezhuang a 'village shrouded in the shadow of cancer'.

'Cancer villages' - where the rate of cancer deaths is much higher than the national average, often because of pollution - are not scarce in China. But previous reports were about villages elsewhere, particularly in southern China, where heavy industry and a multitude of factories prevail.

Having such a village just outside Beijing, which has stepped up environmental protection ahead of the Olympic Games in August, has raised questions.

Beijing authorities have shut down and moved away heavy-polluting factories, including major steel manufacturer Capital Steel, in a bid to improve air quality. But bad air still lingers.

There has been no official response to The Beijing News story, but the paper reported on Jan 6 that volunteers from non-profit organisations had begun arriving at the village to help people understand environmental protection.

A Ministry of Health survey of 30 cities and 78 counties across China revealed that air and water pollution, combined with the widespread use of food additives and pesticides, made cancer the country's top killer disease in 2006.

In June 2006, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that a high rate of cancer deaths had become a reality in areas suffering heavy pollution.

The common factor? Human use of heavily-polluted water.

A spokesman for the Houwanggezhuang factory told the Beijing News that its emissions and discharges are 'according to standards'.

Attempts by The Straits Times to contact the spokesman were unsuccessful.

Mr Ma Jun, head of the Beijing-based non-government Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which puts together a water pollution map, said the factory is not listed on the local government's list of water polluters, but is on the air polluters list.

Still, villagers point out the clouds of white dust spewing from its chimney and the discharge of milky water from underground pipes into the village stream and farmland.

Mr Zhang Baoming, 52, plants corn and wheat on land next to the factory and complains he reaps less each year.

Local officials have said the factory was brought in to kick-start the local economy, but Mr Zhang says that he and other villagers reaped no such benefits. Only a few were hired to do contract work for it.

'We're all farmers here, or odd-job labourers. The factory has got nothing to do with how we earn a living. Instead, it is making our lives more difficult!' he said.

Mr Fan did his survey after three neighbours died of cancer in 2006 and he thought it too much of a coincidence.

Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said he had not heard of the Houwanggezhuang Village case, but said on Jan 10 that 'it is possible that environmental pollution, especially water and air pollution, is the cause of cancerous tumours'.

He said the ministry took such cases seriously and would investigate any reports.

That cannot happen fast enough for those not stricken yet in China's cancer villages.

tracyq@sph.com.sg