Boy trying to avoid heat suffocates to death inside locked car
Akola: A 12-year-old ragpicker, who was trying to protect himself from heat by taking shelter in a parked car, suffocated to death apparently after the doors of the vehicle got locked automatically, police said Wednesday.
The incident occurred Tuesday in Aalewadi village in Akola district of Maharashtra.
A police official said the car had not been used for the past two years due to some technical defect. It was parked by its owner in the bushes.
Talking about the incident, the official said the deceased Tanesh Ballal had come to the area in the afternoon with his grandmother to collect plastic waste.
He might entered the car to take shelter from heat, but got trapped inside as doors might have got locked, he said, adding that Ballal's grandmother kept looking for him the entire day.
"In the night, when the owner of the car opened its door, he found a boy lying motionless inside," the official said, adding that the boy was later identified as Ballal.
A case has been registered in Dahihada police station and further investigation is underway.
Akola district, which is part of Vidarbha region in east Maharashtra, has been reeling under intense heat for the last three days.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
2 Indian nationals part of crew of luxury cruise ship that reported hantavirus outbreak
London (PTI): At least two Indian nationals are part of the crew of the Dutch vessel MV Hondius which reported a hantavirus outbreak with five confirmed cases and three deaths so far, according to the BBC.
The luxury cruise ship, operated by Oceanwide Expeditions, began its journey on April 1 from Argentina’s Ushuaia and is expected to arrive in Spain’s Canary Islands on May 10.
About 150 passengers and crew from 28 countries were initially aboard the luxury cruise, but dozens disembarked on the island of St Helena on April 24, according to the report.
Of the 28 nationalities onboard, 38 are from the Philippines, 31 from the UK, 23 from the US, 16 from the Netherlands, 14 from Spain, nine from Germany, six from Canada, and two crew members from India, among others, the BBC reported.
ALSO READ: West Bengal board declares class 10 exam results, 86.83 pc students pass
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that five of the eight suspected hantavirus cases had been confirmed.
A 69-year-old Dutch woman, confirmed to have the virus, has died; her Dutch husband and a German woman were also among the fatalities. Their cases are being investigated.
The UN health agency has said the outbreak is not the start of a pandemic.
Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at WHO, told a news briefing that the situation is not the same as six years ago with Covid-19 because hantavirus spreads through “close, intimate contact”.
Van Kerkhove said “this is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently”. She said authorities had asked “everyone to wear a mask” on board the MV Hondius.
Those in contact with or caring for suspected cases, she added, should “wear a higher level of personal protective equipment”.
Hantavirus typically spreads from rodents - but in the latest outbreak the transmission between people was documented for the first time, the WHO said.
Meanwhile, health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius.
Oceanwide Expedition said 29 passengers, of at least 12 different nationalities, had left the MV Hondius in St Helena, the British Overseas Territory.
It also said the body of one deceased person—now known to be a Dutch man - was taken off the vessel.
Seven of those who left the cruise liner were British nationals.
