Chennai: As a relatively dry spell brought relief to the rain-hit residents of Tamil Nadu, after many days of incessant rainfall, medical experts on Friday asked the people to take necessary precautions as chances of an epidemic loom large.
Speaking to IANS, DK Sharma, medical superintendent at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said, "The situation will become critical now and there are possibilities that diseases like cholera, diarrhoea would spread and various types of infections would increase. The intake of safe and clean water at this time is very important to avoid any disease.”
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Sharma said that mostly during floods, the stagnant water gets contaminated by bacteria and result in several types of severe skin infections including lupus, wound infections, dermatitis, conjunctivitis, and ear, nose and throat infections, blisters among several others.
Meanwhile, in a very tragic incident, at least 18 people died due to power failure in one of the hospitals in the flood-hit Chennai city today.
According to reports, some patients were brought to the Madras Institute of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (MIOT) Hospital in a critical condition, However, 18 of them could not be saved as power outage led to ventilator failure during their treatment.
Mobile phone services, which had taken a severe beating following the heavy downpour on Tuesday, were partially restored even as other services such as ATMs continued to remain shut.
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The break in rains resulted in a sharp fall in the discharge of waters from Chembarapakkam, Pondi and Puzhal lakes leading to reduction in the water levels of the two rivers that criss-cross the city.
Though the water was receding in many parts of the city the misery of citizens showed little let up as power remained suspended in many areas as a precautionary measure, officials said.
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had yesterday conducted separate aerial surveys of the areas battered by the unprecedented rains that have killed 269 people till now.
