Three dead after drinking contaminated water

Contaminated drinking water claimed three lives, including a child at Lodhan village of North Dinajpur. The district administration has started investigation to ascertain the reason. They are, however, still in the dark.

The District Magistrate of North Dinajpur, Ayasha Rani, said they have been tirelessly working on to find out the reason for those deaths. But after preliminary investigation, it seemed that drinking contaminated water might have killed those villagers.

However, the district administration has learnt that around 17 such villagers had fallen ill after drinking the water in question. Those ill villagers were taken to the nearby Islampur Sub-divisional hospital and Lodhan Block health centre.

“It is really difficult to ascertain the reason of the deaths. It seems that the consumption of the contaminated drinking water has caused the deaths,” said the District Magistrate.

Radhika Onrao, the 4-year-old girl died there in the hospital along with Saraswati Onrao (52), and Niranjan Malo (47).

A team from the district health department reached the spot led by the Chief Medical Officer of health of North Dinajpur district. The team has collected the sample drinking water from that village and sent it for necessary test in Kolkata.

The source of the drinking water in the village are the various water bodies in the area from where villagers pour water in the pots and carry it to their huts for drinking.

The contamination may have happened in some of these ponds. However, there are many deep tube wells from where the villagers took water as well.

All the sources were being examined thoroughly, said the officers of the district administration.