Sewage-contaminated drinking water is being blamed for killing at least 10 people, including a baby boy, and sending more than 270 others to hospital in Indore, ranked India\u2019s \u201ccleanest city\u201d for the last eight years.<\/p>\n
Residents of a congested, lower-income neighbourhood in Indore, Madhya Pradesh\u2019s commercial capital, had been warning authorities for months about foul-smelling tap water. Their complaints went unheeded, despite the city\u2019s much-lauded ranking for waste segregation and other cleanliness measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have received information about 10 deaths due to a diarrhoea outbreak caused by contaminated water in the Bhagirathpura area,\u201d said Indore\u2019s mayor, Pushyamitra Bhargava. Sewage was mixing \u201cin the main line leading from the water tank\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
Local media reported that the death toll had climbed to 15, but there was no official confirmation. At least 32 patients remain in intensive care units. Beyond those hospitalised, the state\u2019s chief minister, Mohan Yadav, said health teams conducting door-to-door visits identified 2,456 \u201csuspected patients\u201d, who were given first aid \u201con the spot\u201d.<\/p>\n
Authorities say a public toilet constructed above a drinking water pipeline appears to have allowed sewage to seep into the supply. The toilet was built without a septic tank.<\/p>\n
Residents began streaming into hospitals earlier this week, complaining of vomiting, diarrhoea and high fever.<\/p>\n
Water tests \u201cconfirmed the presence of abnormal bacteria generally found in sewer water comprising human waste\u201d, a medical official said.<\/p>\n
Residents said their complaints about the water had run into a bureaucratic maze of red tape.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrima facie, this case falls under gross dereliction of duty,\u201d said an Indore municipal councillor, Kamal Waghela. Several municipal officials have been suspended pending an investigation.<\/p>\n
The five-month-old infant who died had been bottle-fed using tap water, his father, Sunil Sahu, told reporters. \u201cNo one told us the water was contaminated. We filtered it. The same water was flowing throughout the neighbourhood. There was no warning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
An editorial in the Hindu called for \u201cbetter enforcement of water guidelines and other environmental laws at all levels\u201d. The newspaper noted that toxic air pollution, which blankets many cities, was already \u201cwreaking havoc on citizens\u2019 health\u201d and said what happened in Madhya Pradesh should serve as \u201ca wake-up call for India\u2019s water management\u201d.<\/p>\n
The opposition Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, accused the Bharatiya Janata party-led state government of negligence, saying \u201cclean water isn\u2019t a favour \u2013 it\u2019s a right to life\u201d.<\/p>\n
The government said new rules would be framed to prevent similar incidents. \u201cNo stone will be left unturned to make sure it does not happen again,\u201d Yadav said.<\/p>\n
The Indore crisis comes amid broader concerns over water safety nationwide. The Times of India reported that only 8% of public water-testing laboratories run by the Delhi government were accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, which certifies facilities meeting international quality-control standards. Nationwide, 59% of public labs are now accredited.<\/p>\n
Experts warn that as India\u2019s urban population grows rapidly, lapses in water testing heighten the risk of disease outbreaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sewage-contaminated drinking water is being blamed for killing at least 10 people, including a baby boy, and sending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-213395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}