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Chemical burns have disfigured a 12-year-old girl's face after high-school students squirted acid at her from a bus.
The chemical landed on the Bay of Plenty girl's head and face - later causing her to lose clumps of hair - as her mother drove past a bus parked outside Mt Maunganui College last week.
Senior Sergeant Tania Kura told the Herald on Sunday that Papamoa police were searching for the students. "We're not sure who did it or what the substance is... but it's dangerous."
Her mother posted on an internet message board saying that she drove through the bus bay and the "next minute my daughter was screaming".
"She had what looked like water over her face and all through the car but she was screaming that her face was burning," the mother wrote. "Her lips puffed up and looked bright red... Her face had red welts on it and her scalp was burning also."
The woman wrote down the name and number of the bus and told the school's deputy principal what had happened. "He basically didn't believe me... I rushed her to the doctor and they confirmed a chemical burn."
Police were testing swabs of the liquid to identify it.
Mt Maunganui College principal Terry Collett said an assembly of all the students on the bus was called. If caught, the culprits would be dealt with seriously, he said.
