Colachel Tamil Nadu (AsiaNews) Following Sunday's deadly tsunami, cholera, typhus and skin infections are the next threats to Tamil Nadu. So far more than 65,000 people have been killed throughout south-east Asia: 12,000 in India alone.
Waters have receded but problems for the south-eastern Indian state are growing: burial of unidentified bodies, aid distribution and disease prevention among survivors.
The greatest fear is that putrefying bodies will contaminate drinking water before rescue operations can provide sufficient medicines and vaccines against cholera and typhus.
"One tragedy has already happened and a greater one is waiting to happen," said Dr Thanammal, chief medical officer in Colachel, a village in Tamil Nadu's worst-hit Kanyakumari district. "There can be a typhoid or cholera outbreak here within a week," she warns. In fact, the incubation period for these diseases is a week.
Dr Thanammal explains that the flies buzzing around the corpses will spread disease. For this reason, "we need anti-cholera and anti-typhoid injections for the entire population here."
"We have made a request to the government and are waiting for supplies," she added.
For Dr Thanammal, mass media have an important role to play in this emergency. They "should inform the public that an epidemic is staring them in the face [so as to] take preventive measures," like drinking only boiled water.
Dr P. R. Rajan, assistant secretary of the Tamil Nadu branch of the Indian Medical Association (MA), said that "people are at a risk not only from typhoid and cholera, but also skin diseases. In a situation like this, all contagious diseases are likely to spread faster". In the meantime, IMA has been providing flood victims free medicines and treatment.
Doctors in private nursing homes and clinics have offered to help but are fearful of mobs.
"When a patient dies," a doctor in a private clinic said, "the mob turns violent sometimes. They think it is because we administered the wrong medicine or denied them some medicine because it was expensive [. . .]. In the government hospitals there are policemen to protect doctors. We do not have any such help."
India's Union government said there will not be any epidemic outbreak. It set the start for a widespread vaccination campaign in three-days time.
In Colachel, burying the dead continues. The local administration, fearful of possible outbreaks, has decided to inter all unidentified bodies in mass graves. In the village cemetery, locals buried 378 people in a single grave.
Some volunteers are trying however to give the process more dignity. A Caritas India volunteer said: "We are trying our best to bury the dead with some dignity, Even though the bodies were put in a single grave, they were not buried en masse. Each body was put inside the grave and fully covered with earth before the next one was lowered. So each body did have its own space."