Three deaths in Tiruchi’s Woraiyur not due to water contamination, says Minister in Assembly-OxBig News Network

K.N. Nehru. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Municipal Administration and Water Supply K.N. Nehru on Monday (April 21, 2025) rejected claims that the three deaths in Woraiyur, Tiruchi, were due to water contamination in the area. He further contended that the distribution of buttermilk and cold drinks during a recent festival in nearby areas could have caused several people to fall ill.

In his reply to a special calling attention motion moved by Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami and others in the Assembly, Mr. Nehru said there was no evidence that a four-year-old child had died due to diarrhoea from consuming contaminated water, according to the preliminary autopsy report. He added that a 90-year-old woman who died had been ill for the past 10 days, while the third deceased, a 53-year-old woman, had a heart ailment and died of cardiac arrest at her residence.

After seven individuals complained of vomitting and diarrhoea in wards 8 and 10 of the Woraiyur area of Tiruchi Corporation on April 18, a team comprising 286 persons, including doctors, nurses, and health inspectors, was constituted. It took necessary steps, the Minister said.

The officials surveyed 1,492 houses and screened 6,416 individuals. A total of 53 individuals, including 29 women and six children, were admitted as in-patients to both government and private hospitals.

Nine special health teams organised camps, in which 28 were treated as out-patients. Of them, five were referred to State-run hospitals, he said. As part of precautionary measures, medicines, ORS, among others were distributed to 11,875 individuals, and water samples have been collected from six locations and sent for laboratory testing, he said. Meanwhile, 10 monitoring teams have been constituted, and they have been inspecting all the houses in the area.

‘Action against buttermilk distributors’

Even so, diarrhoea was also being reported in nearby rural areas where a Chithirai car festival was held recently in which food, buttermilk, and cold drinks were distributed to people, Mr. Nehru said. “It is possible that they could have been the causes for diarrhoea. Since the piping is different from areas under the Corporation areas and rural areas, there is no chance that this was because of drinking water supply,” he contended.

However, as part of precautionary measures, water supply has been stopped, and it was being supplied through tanker lorries, the Minister said. On testing, it was found that the water was found to be fit for human consumption, he said. On April 19, a total of 39 individuals were admitted as a precautionary measure, and so were 14 individuals the following day, and all of them were alright now, he said. The situation was under control, he assured.

Expressing suspicion over the buttermilk and cold drinks supplied during the festival, the Minister said he has instructed for the identification of those responsible for their distribution and to initiate action against them. Panruti MLA T. Velmurugan, VCK’s S.S. Balaji, CPI (M)‘s V.P. Nagaimaali, PMK’s G.K. Mani, and Congress’ J.G. Prince also spoke, moving the special calling attention motion in the House over the issue.