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Source: http://www.canoe.com:80/TopStories/acid_nov13.html

Saturday, November 13, 1999

Survivors of Indian cyclone now face burns in toxic spills

Life picking up in capital of cyclone-ravaged state

By NEELESH MISRA -- Associated Press BHUBANESWAR, India --

Industrial chemicals spilled in India's devastating cyclone are spreading, causing hundreds more cases of acid burns among survivors, relief groups said Saturday.

The same toxic spills were preserving unattended, bloated bodies left by the disaster that has killed more than 9,400 people.

Relief workers said more than 60 percent of survivors in dozens of villages in the coastal Orissa state had boils, scars and red patches that were spreading all over their bodies after they bathed in tainted ponds, where the water is black.

On Saturday, volunteers and soldiers recovered 73 more bodies in the Bhadrak area along the coast, raising the official death toll to 9,465, according to the relief commissioner's office.

But casualty reports were yet to come from Kujang area, 200 miles south of Calcutta, where cases of acid burns were said to be quickly increasing.

The acid pollution "has spread in a 25-mile radius from Kujang. If we do not control it, it will spread to other areas with the flowing water," said Mahendra Parida of a children's relief agency, working in the area.

A team of experts traveled Saturday to the far-flung area to assess the impact of the chemical spills, while doctors -- already swamped treating gasto-intestinal diseases from bad water -- complained they lacked medicines to treat chemical burns.

Aside from injuries and death, relief workers must deal with more than 3.3 million children affected by the cyclone -- many orphaned, separated from their families, or disabled. UNICEF and other voluntary groups planned to find them homes.

Volunteers walked door to door to find out how many were orphaned or struggling for food and shelter, a UNICEF statement said. Children living alone would be asked with whom they would want to live, and siblings would be kept together, the statement said.

"We fear that the problems of child sexual abuse, child begging and child labor will flare up now," said Parida, coordinator of the Forum Against Child Exploitation, which will take part in the UNICEF campaign. Parida said the government had not made baby food available in the affected areas.

In the worst-affected Jagatsinghpur district, where more than 8,100 people have been officially declared dead so far, relief workers said acid spills had reduced the stench from badly decomposed bodies of humans and animals lying unattended.

"The bodies have become like Egyptian mummies. They have stopped decomposing or stinking," said Ram Narayan of the Orissa Disaster Mitigation Mission, a conglomerate of 40 Indian and international voluntary groups.

"Wherever our teams went, people are still fishing in the same water where bodies lie. They are taking that water to wash," said Parida. "Then they eat that fish."

Doctors who examined hundreds of patients in the area said the acid-related ailments were spreading fast. "Doctors have advised patients to wash their bodies with clean water," said Narayan. "But there is no clean water."

Jagadananda, a senior relief coordinator for the voluntary groups, said the acid was believed to have come inland with gushing sea water from a fertilizer plant owned by the Paradip Phosphates Ltd.

There were unconfirmed reports last week of an ammonia leak in the PPL plant in Paradwip.

The chairman and director of the company were not available for comments and did not return several phone calls.

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