Toxic alcohol kills 69 in India, hundreds hospitalized – officialsBy The Manila TimesGUWAHATI, India: Sixty-nine workers have died and at least 200 others have been hospitalized in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, officials said Saturday, in the latest case of alcohol poisoning in the country. “We have recorded the death of 50 persons in Golaghat since Thursday night,” Dhiren Hazarika, deputy commissioner of Golaghat district in Assam, told Agence France-Presse. “The people came to the hospital with severe vomiting, extreme chest pain and breathlessness,” doctor Ratul Bordoloi, joint director of Golaghat’s health department, told Agence France-Presse. Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told Agence France-Presse that the patients were being treated at different hospitals in the affected districts. Hundreds of mainly poor people die each year in the South Asian country from tainted liquor, which normally costs just a few US cents a bottle.

Source: Manila Times February 23, 2019 10:30 UTC