Residents of Old Guntur woke up on a balmy Monday morning to find about the outbreak of gastroenteritis in their neighbourhood.
Sk. Shabeena, 28, a resident of Anandapet, died on Sunday afternoon while undergoing treatment at the Government General Hospital, and hours later local hospitals were flooded with people showing symptoms of watery diarrhoea, fluctuating pulse levels and muscle cramps. The affected persons were from socially disadvantaged communities who found it difficult to cope with the situation.
The scenes witnessed at the newly built super speciality were unprecedented. The patient waiting hall on the ground floor was converted into a makeshift ward, and more than 100 men and women were crammed in the available beds, in some cases two people sharing one bed. As the staff struggled to cope up with the extraordinary situation, more deaths were reported.
Till Thursday, 10 people were confirmed dead. The affected areas were Anandapet 3rd lane, Vinobha Nagar, Suddapalli Donka and parts of Rajagari Thota which get water from the oldest water reservoir in the town next to the Brahmananda Reddy Stadium.
“The near-epidemic spread of the gastroenteritis was rapid. Some of the symptoms such as pale brown watery stools and the rapid fall in pulse levels caused us a lot of worry. In some cases, we shifted the patients to private hospitals. More than 300 people received treatment at government and private hospitals,’’ said District Medical and Health Officer Yasmin.
Many patients had no clue about the infection. “My son, Sk. Esobu, came home on Sunday afternoon and since then, he has been repeatedly vomiting. On Monday afternoon, we brought him to government hospital and later shifted him to a private Hospital. I have no idea what had led to the infection,” said Sk. Mastan, a resident of Suddapalli Donka.
The outbreak in Old Guntur has left the Guntur Municipal Corporation at its wit’s end. For three days, the GMC was clueless about the reason behind the outbreak. All possible inquiries led to contamination of water. The labyrinth network of drinking water pipes run on the open side drains, and there is every chance of sewage seeping through the drinking water pipelines. Part of the Old Guntur is covered by an Under Ground Drainage (UGD) system now in defunct condition. For instance, in Baraimam Panja locality, 35 manholes were found clogged with sewage which formed into a solid mass.
“I have been raising the issue of poor sanitation in Old Guntur for years, yet the GMC never took action. The open drains pass in front of the houses, and in many cases, the drinking water taps are just above the drains. The GMC should have shifted the taps many years back,’’ said former MLA Sk. Mastan Vali.
With the endemic like situation becoming serious, District Collector and Special Officer of GMC Kona Sasidhar rushed to the affected areas on Monday. After conducting a door-to-door inspection of houses, Mr. Sasidhar asked the GMC to stop water supply to the affected areas.
Over the next three days, senior officials of Municipal Administration Department, Principal Secretary Karikala Valavan, Director of Municipal Administration K. Kanna Babu, visited the areas and monitored the situation. Nearly 25 teams launched a massive operation to remove silt from all the clogged drains and shift the 225 tap connections from the main roads. The existing water pipeline laid 30 years back is being replaced.
As expected, heads began to roll in GMC with Municipal Commissioner C. Anuradha suspending or surrendering eight engineers from the level of AE to tap inspectors.
For a city with no direct raw water source, it is a daunting task to meet the demand of providing round the clock water to a population more than 10 lakh. On a day, 170 Million Litres per Day of water is pumped from river Krishna at Undavalli to a distance of 38 km to the filtration plants at Takkellapadu. Raw water which is pumped into the 132 MLD filtration plants at Takkellapadu is filtered and supplied through a pipeline network of 1,057 km and pumped up to the 43 overhead service reservoirs in the city.
The comprehensive water scheme, which has been designed to meet the demands of the population up to 2040, envisages a supply of 135 LPCD.
