Bhubaneswar, June 23: The number of deaths due to sunstroke in the state this summer went up to 66 Tuesday.
Special relief Commissioner’s office sources here said 66 sunstroke deaths have been confirmed out of 184 death cases received by the SRC office from across the state. As per the enquiry reports, 108 deaths occurred due to other reasons and the allegations of 10 deaths were still under investigation.
Ganjam district reported 16 sunstroke deaths followed by Kendrapara eight, Bolanagir and Dhenkanal six each, Bargarh five and Jajpur four.
While three sunstroke deaths were reported from Puri and Cuttack, Keonjhar and Rayagada reported two deaths each.
Subarnapur, Sambalpur, Nuapada, Mayurbhanj, Khurda, Kalahandi, Deogarh, Jagatsinghpur, Boudh, Bhadrak, Balasore and Angul reported one sunstroke death each.
The state government has recently declared sunstroke death as one of the natural calamities and announced to pay a compensation of `50,000 to the next of kin of the person who died due to sunstroke. UNI