Eighty people, mostly children, fell ill allegedly after having food with spurious 'chaat masala' at a village fair in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district, officials said on Thursday.

The incident happened in Karmatand panchayat area on Wednesday evening, they said.

People of the Huchuktandhad village complained of stomach pain and were vomiting after returning from the Bhokta fair, officials said.

Eighty of them, mostly children, were admitted to the Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College and Hospital (SNMMCH) around 10.30 pm as their condition deteriorated, said doctor UK Ojha, the head of the Medicine Department of the hospital.

The condition of a child was critical, he said.

The youngest victim is nine years old Pinki Kumari, while the oldest person is 44 years old Vijay Mahto, he added.

As beds in the Emergency ward fell short with such a large number of patients arriving together, some were accommodated in vacant beds in other wards of the hospital, doctor Ojha said.

Additional doctors and nursing staff were called in to handle the rush of patients, he said.

Dhandab Civil Surgeon doctor Alok Viswakarma, who visited the hospital, ordered an investigation into the incident.

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