Something in the water? ‘Twin town’ makes headlines in China

Banshang, a village of 50 families in Hubei in central China, has produced 16 sets of twins in the past 50 years, prompting speculation the water from the local well has magical powers and giving new meaning to the expression "twin town".

This is 12 times the global average, the Chutian Metropolis Daily newspaper in Wuhan reported.

Of the 16 sets of twins, nine are sisters, four are brothers and the rest are mixed. The oldest twins are aged 51 and the youngest are just five.

Locals believe the reason there are so many twins is that the water from the well works as a fertility elixir, similar to examples from ancient myths.

Under the one-child policy of population control, which has since been relaxed to allow two children, there was widespread use of fertility treatment to encourage multiple births, because the policy applied to one birth, rather than one child, and twins or triplets or more were not penalised.

In some cases, where two children were born in rapid succession, they would be registered as twins to avoid paying the fine.

In recent years, in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and the use of fertility drugs have become popular in China and with it there has been a rise in the number of multiple births, but Banshang is still a statistical conundrum.

The oldest person in the village is Shen Shuigui (81), and she says the water in the shallow well is particularly sweet, and it used to serve the whole village.

According to the report, the well was sealed four years ago when a child died in it, and people had to go elsewhere for their water, and then running water was installed. In the interim, only two sets of twins were born.

What looks most likely is that genetic factors are the reason for so many twins. Of the 16 sets of twins, 15 of them are in some way related to the Chen family.

The newspaper reported how some parents have had difficulty telling the identical twins apart over the years.

“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, told the paper. “Whether it’s the water or whether it’s genetics, our village of twins has become famous.”