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by ROBERT BIRSEL, Reuters

Tests so far have shown some of the waste, imported from Taiwan late last year and dumped near the southern port of Sihanoukville, has very high mercury levels of up to 10,971 parts per million, they said.

But no tests have been done for other toxic substances such as pesticides, dioxins, furans and polycyclic aromatic carbons and all organic forms of mercury, they said.

"We don't know what's in this waste," Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network Secretariat told a news conference.

"We find it shocking that some authorities have already jumped to the conclusion that the wastes posed no threat while comprehensive chemical analysis and health studies have yet to be conducted," said Von Hernandez of Greenpeace International.

Mak Sithirath, a coordinator of Cambodian environmental groups, said he had found evidence that two people had died from exposure to the waste, shipped to Cambodia by Taiwan industrial giant Formosa Plastics Corp.

Mak Sithirath said one of those believed to have been killed was a worker at the port where the waste was unloaded and the other was a young villager who slept on sacks scavenged from the dump before it was realised the waste was dangerous.

The discovery of the mercury-tainted waste in December sparked riots in which one person was killed as protesters sacked offices of local officials they accused of allowing its import.

Four other people died in accidents during a panicked exodus of more than 10,000 residents fearing contamination.

Authorities in Sihanoukville said on Tuesday they had found some 300 kg (660 pounds) of the concrete-like, Taiwanese waste dumped near a beach in the seaside resort.

Deputy police chief Tak Vantha said villagers had taken the waste away to use as building material but had dumped it after hearing it was toxic.

"We've just found about 300 kg of the waste about 50 metres (yards) from the beach on the outskirts of town," Tak Vantha told Reuters. "Some people were using it with cement to make flooring, but when they heard it was dangerous they took it away."

Environmental experts blasted the Taiwan firm that shipped the waste to Cambodia and said it would have to take it back as it would be very hard to find another country to accept it.

Cambodia must enact legislation and sign the Basel Convention aimed at preventing rich countries dumping waste in poor ones, they said.

"Formosa Plastics has been acting like a real villain," said Hernandez. "So far they're really proving to be despicable."

The firm first insisted the waste was not toxic but later said some of it might slightly exceed safety standards. It has promised to remove it from Cambodia.

"Cambodia has now had a sad, convincing demonstration of the fact that the international trade in hazardous waste is not commerce, it's criminality," said Puckett.

"There is now no honourable excuse for any politician not to immediately pass legislation banning all forms of hazardous waste imports," he said.

About 30 officials including customs officers have been suspended from their jobs over the scandal, but the government rejected a news report last week that some top government members had been paid millions of dollars to approve the import of the material.