As an aluminium smelter belches pollution into the brown sky over Huangjiawa, a villager who used to till the land where the smelter now sits recalls a time when things were different. “Ten years ago the water in our rivers was so clean, even cleaner than the piped water is today,” says Mr Zhang, who declined to give his full name.

Today the area has one of the highest rates of stomach cancer in the world, and the wells that sustained the village for centuries have been poisoned.

But unlike other victims of pollution across China, the village of Huangjiawa has shot to prominence as an online media campaign highlighting its plight has sparked a debate about groundwater?contamination that has ricocheted all the way to Beijing. For Xi Jinping, China’s new leader who will be named head of state next week, growing public anger over environmental deterioration is set to be a key test of his leadership.