Unnatural death toll mounts to 31 in Odisha: Director of Health Services

The number of unnatural death cases in Odisha has mounted to 31 on Sunday from 28 reported on Saturday, informs Director of Health Services Bijay Mohapatra.

He added that the post-mortem of the bodies of 28 deceased has been conducted and three persons died unnaturally in Rourkela. Their bodies have been taken for post-mortem.

However, the Health Director made it clear that all such cases can't be directly linked with sunstroke/heat strokes. “The exact reasons for their death can only be ascertained by assessing the circumstantial inquiry and post-mortem reports. The Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) has already informed that to date, five people have died of sunstroke in Odisha,” he added.

He further stated that if the death cases whose reasons are normally not found, those cases will have to go through medico-legally post-mortem. As per disaster management rule, such cases will be investigated by the administration to confirm if they are victims of sunstroke.  Besides, post-mortem will be conducted to ascertain the reasons, Mohapatra added.

Meanwhile, the Rourkela ADM informed that the number of unnatural deaths rose to 35 in the Steel City while six of these cases are sunstroke-related deaths. He added that the families have taken four bodies without post-mortem while a joint enquiry by tehsildar and a medical team is underway to ascertain the cause of the deaths of 24 persons.