New Delhi - At least 32 people, including 18 children, have
died from diarrhoea in India's flood-hit eastern Bihar state, raising
fears of the outbreak of an epidemic, news reports said Friday.
Most of the victims contracted disease by drinking contaminated
water, IANS news agency reported quoting unnamed official sources.
Towns and villages across large swathes of Bihar have been
flooded for more than a fortnight since the Kosi River breached its
banks in neighboring Nepal following heavy monsoon rains.
Thousands are still marooned and hundreds of villages remain under
at least two feet of water. Millions of people have been displaced by
the floods, and at least 80 people have died, according to government
estimates.
The dehydration deaths fro diarrhoea were reported from the
Supaul, Saharsa and Araria districts.
The head of Manganj village in Supaul district said 17 people, who
had taken shelter on the rooftop of a school, died of the disease.
Officials said more than 100 cases of diarrhoea and dysentery had
been reported from flood-hit areas. Most of the patients complained
of vomiting and stomach ache.
'Lack of access to clean drinking water is a major cause of the
spread of diarrhoea as people are forced to consume water from
contaminated sources for survival,' an official of Bihar's disaster
management department was quoted as saying.
India's federal Health Ministry said Friday it was sending 300
tons of medicines to Bihar including water disinfectants, measles'
vaccines and malaria-testing kits.
Meanwhile, the Metereological Department warned of heavy rains
over the next 48 hours in eastern and north-eastern India, which may
worsen the situation in north-eastern Assam state, where Bramhaputra
River and its tributaries have flooded large areas.
The death toll in the current floods in Assam stands at 17 and
about 1.5 million people have been affected.
According to official data, 1,866 people have died this year in 15
of India's 29 states are in flood brought on by the annual monsoon
rains that last from June to end-September.
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