China dairy products found tainted with melamine. bbcnews. July 09, 2010. Chinese food safety officials have seized 64 tonnes of raw dairy materials contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical melamine. The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the quality watchdog in Qinghai province took the material from a dairy plant there. Test samples showed the milk powder carried up to 500 times the maximum allowed level of the chemical. The use of melamine in milk in 2008 killed six babies and made 300,000 ill. The latest batch of contaminated powder was first found in Gansu province and traced back to the Dongyuan Dairy Factory in Minhe Country, in neighbouring Qinghai. Another 12 tonnes of finished milk powder products, also found to be tainted, were seized.[ See ]