Contaminated water kills 9 and hospitalises 200 in India's Indore city

At least nine people have died and more than 200 have been hospitalised in the central Indian city of Indore after a diarrhoea outbreak that officials said was linked to contaminated drinking water, according to a lawmaker and local health authorities.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.

Indore's chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.

"I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited," Hasani said.

Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.

"We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed," Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.

Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India's cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.