After Bihar, UP finds bodies floating in Ganga river

Dozens of decomposing bodies washed up at the bank of Ganga River at Chausa in Buxar, Bihar, on Monday. Pic/PTI

A day after bodies of suspected Covid-19 patients washed up on banks of Ganga in Bihar's Buxar, some unidentified corpses were found floating in the Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. "A probe into the matter is underway," Ghazipur District Magistrate M P Singh told ANI.

People, ignoring physical distancing rule, flood a market in Patna on Tuesday. Pic/PTI

The locals, traumatised by the sight of floating bodies, fear the disease will spread further in the area. They accused the authorities of ineptitude. "We informed the administration about the matter, but no action has been taken by them. If the situation continues, there is fear of us getting infected," Akhand, a resident, told ANI.

71 bodies fished in Bihar

The Bihar government on Tuesday said altogether 71 bodies have been fished out from the Ganga in Buxar district. State Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar put out a series of tweets, asserting that the bodies had flown downstream from neighbouring UP. UP is among the states reporting a high number of Covid-19 casualties since April.

Now, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Haryana have also seen a rise in cases. In Uttarakhand, daily deaths rose from single digit in the second week of April to over 180 on Sunday, according to a report in the Indian Express. The state so far has 3,700 Covid-19 casualties, and more than half of them happened in just past one month.

Jharkhand has until now reported 3,853 deaths, and 70 per cent (2,678) of these occurred in the past one month. Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan have also seen more than half of their total casualties in the past one month.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever