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Celine Ge

A small village in central China has risen to national fame for producing 16 sets of twins from just 50 families, with locals crediting the local well water for the medical marvel, according to local media.
The birthrate of twins in Banshang village, in the mountainous centre of Hubei province, is 12 times the worldwide average, the Chutian Metropolis Daily in Wuhan reports.
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The 16 sets of twins were born over 50 years to the village, known informally and not surprisingly as “twin town”.
Villagers believe the phenomenon has something to do with what the mothers drank.
Of the 16 sets of twins, nine are sisters, four are brothers and the remainder are mixed. The oldest are aged 51 the youngest are five.
It has been difficult for the neighbours – and even parents — to tell the identical twins apart.
“We used to mix the babies up and bathe one of them twice by mistake decades ago,” Chen Mingyuan, the village party secretary and father of twin daughters, was quoted as saying.
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The twin trouble lingered when they grew up, Chen said. His twin daughter Chen Fangna was often mistaken by her sister’s children for their own mother when speaking on the phone, because the two women’s voices are virtually indistinguishable.
The village elders were quoted as saying that an old well in the village was most likely to be the source of the twinning.
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Most of the twins were born in the 1980s, when most villagers drank water from the well. Only two sets have been born in the last decade, when running water was installed in the village.
Others suggested more realistically that genetic factors were the reason, as most of the villagers came from the Chen, Shen and Jiang families.


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China society

Village of 50 households in central China produces 16 sets of twins

Banshang village in the mountains of Hubei has only 50 households but has produced 16 sets of twins. Photo: Chutian Metropolis Daily.

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Some say that local well water was the cause of birthrate that is more than 12 times the global average, while others say genetics is a more likely cause
