Two die in Navsari village from contaminated water

Surat: Two persons in a small village of Sadlav, roughly 10 km off Navsari town, died allegedly from consuming contaminated water. Primary reports suggest that people of the area consumed dirty yellow water after contaminated water seeped into the water in its only old and dirty borewell. Nearly 20 people fell ill after drinking this water and two of them died on Wednesday morning.
The deceased have been identified as Rakesh Halpati, 37, and Jitu Halpati, 38.
However, after the health department sent their bodies for postmortem, the primary reports suggest that one death was due to cardiac arrest while another died of fits.
According to information, Sadlav village, which has a population of 3,000, has a borewell in Sukhinagar area which the residents use for drinking water. However two days ago they started getting yellow water from the well.
A health department official said, “It appears that dirty water from an old well located nearby must have seeped into the borewell and contaminated its water. Drinking this yellow coloured water may have resulted in people suffering from different gastric ailments like loose motion and vomiting.”
Talking to TOI, district collector Dr MD Modiya said, “We asked affected people to shift to medical facilities nearby for treatment on the first day, but they didn’t want to go. However, on second day they had been shifted to different medical facilities at Navsari, Khadsupa, Ambada and Kahrel. Of them, 22 are recovering well. The yellow coloured contaminated water has been sent for analysis to find out if that is responsible for the the health issues.”
Dr Modiya further said that they have received the primary PM reports of the two deceased which says cardiac arrest and severe fits as the cause of deaths.
“They were both highly alcoholic in nature and once the full report comes in we will be able to know which content proved fatal for them. However, we have stopped people from drinking the borewell water and started tanker supply which will continue till fresh uncontaminated water supply is restored,” he added.