24 die due to oxygen shortage in India’s Karnataka, families allege

Twenty-four patients, including 23 suffering from Covid-19, died in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district due to alleged oxygen shortage in the district hospital in the past 24 hours, officials said today.

Family members of the dead staged a demonstration at the hospital and alleged there was a shortage of oxygen and raised slogans.

Chamarajanagar district in-charge S Suresh Kumar, who is also the Primary and Secondary Education Minister, said he ordered a death audit report from the district administration into the incident.

He, however, maintained that all the deaths did not occur due to oxygen shortage.

"It's not appropriate to say that all the 24 deaths happened due to oxygen shortage. These deaths had happened from Sunday morning to this morning. The oxygen shortage happened in the wee hours of Monday -- from 12:30am to 2:30am," Kumar told reporters in Bengaluru.

Suresh Kumar said the death audit report would detail what these patients were suffering from, whether they had any comorbidities and in which state they were brought to the hospital.

According to him, there is a stock of 6,000 litres of liquid medical oxygen (LMO), but there was a need for oxygen cylinders.

"The cylinders were supposed to come from Mysuru, but there was some glitch," Kumar said.