TEAM HERALD
bureau@herald-goa.com
PONDA: Eleven students of the government high school at Dasolwada-Kundaim took ill after reportedly drinking water from a cooler in the school on Saturday morning.
Parents of the ailing students have strongly suspected that the tank supplying water to the cooler had not been cleaned in a long time.
According to reports, the incident took place at about 10.45 am when a group of students from std 5 to Std 9 drank water from the cooler in the school.
A short while later, 11 of them felt uneasy and then took ill in the school. They were rushed to the Marcaim health centre in private vehicles as a 108 vehicle was not available at the time.
On hearing the news, frantic parents rushed to the hospital to enquire about the condition of their children.
A doctor at the hospital suggested that the incident could either be due to water poisoning or a situation whereby students could have imagined being ill after one student had fallen ill. The parents, however, strongly disputed the latter suggestion.
The aggrieved parents along with south Goa BJP President Prashant Naik demanded the immediate testing of water samples from the cooler.
Agreeing to their demand, the Marcaim health centre sent some water samples for tests to the Health Department in Panjim.
Some parents then inspected the school water storage tank and found that the tank supplying water to the cooler contained mud, thereby fuelling speculation that the tank had not been cleaned in a long time.
The parents later insisted that the school staff should clean the tank once in three months to avoid such an incident in future.
