Hundreds fall sick in northern Egypt in suspected contaminat

[HEPZIBAH]

Hundreds fall sick in northern Egypt in suspected contamination
Many locals think the outbreak was caused by tap water, but local officials disagree
Ahram Online , Friday 24 Apr 2015


Hundreds of people in northern Egypt were hospitalised on Friday showing symptoms relating to poisoning, which locals suspect to have been caused by water contamination.

State news agency MENA said 310 people in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, north of Cairo, have been admitted to local hospitals after suffering poisoning symptoms.

Dozens of ambulances were dispatched to Ibrahimiya city and surrounding villages to take the victims, who included women and children, to hospital. Forty people have since been discharged.

Authorities are analysing samples of drinking water and suspected food items to identify the cause of the poisoning, provincial health ministry official Sherif Makien told MENA.

Mohamed Shehata said his wife and his 10-year-old daughter had suddenly become ill with vomiting and severe diarrhoea. When they went to a local hospital, they discovered that dozens of the city’s residents were also hospitalised with the same symptoms.

Several locals told Al-Ahram Arabic news website that they believe the symptoms were caused by tap water, with some of them saying the water had smelled strange before the incident took place.

Another resident, Ibrahim Abdel-Azzim, said that some mosques had earlier cautioned against drinking tap water, claiming it was "saturated with toxic substances."

But Shaker Abdel Fattah, a provincial water official from the governorate's drinking water and sanitation company, said that tap water could not be the source of the problem.

He said that the area’s water supply was fed by a filtration station, adding that samples taken proved that the proportions of chlorine and turbidity in the water were at a normal level.

Reports of water poisoning in the governorate are not uncommon.

Local residents had in the past complained that drinking water in the governorate was contaminated and mixed with sewage.

In October 2014, around 100 people were poisoned in a similar incident. Some blamed the drinking water, but officials at the time claimed the water was clean.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/128523.aspx

[Bullet Magnet]

Even a 2 year old child can figure out that someone is telling porkies...

Boat with phosphate looses its load at Dendera, 2 days later people upstream get poisoned..

Nothing to see here, move along...


That is the problem when you are at the end of a river, much better to be closer to the source, where there are less pollutants.
Here in Wales, water quality in my stream depends on how many sheep carcasses are floating in it at any given time...

[Major Thom]

Do you have the peat stain in it BM? When we lived on Skye, we always had the peat stain in the water, beautiful soft water but some of our guests were put of from the brown stain. Looked dreadful in the loo's but a bit of Loo Bloo stopped that.

[Bullet Magnet]

No we dont Major, the water here is very clear, as the soil layers are thin, no peat, and lots of limestone.

However, in the Dales, the water was very brackish, it looked like Beer... If only..

[Mad Dilys]

Even a 2 year old child can figure out that someone is telling porkies...

Boat with phosphate looses its load at Dendera, 2 days later people upstream get poisoned..

Nothing to see here, move along...


That is the problem when you are at the end of a river, much better to be closer to the source, where there are less pollutants.
Here in Wales, water quality in my stream depends on how many sheep carcasses are floating in it at any given time...

That water flowing uphill again?

[Brian Yare]

Dendera is some 300 miles south of Cairo by river. I don't have an exact speed for the flow of water to hand but from watching the shipping and flotsam in Luxor I would guess maybe 2 miles an hour? It would take 6 days for anything from Dendera to reach Cairo if my estimate is anywhere close. I assume it also takes some time for the water to pass through a processing plant before reaching a domestic piped water supply.

So this connection just does not wash with me!

[Bullet Magnet]

I meant downstream.... but you know what I mean by "upstream"..

[Mad Dilys]

It's the blooming river flowing north - not natural.

[Who2]

A list of rivers that flow South to North….
Athabasca Alberta, Canada, 765 miles
Bann Northern Ireland
Bighorn Wyoming and Montana, USA, 336 miles
Cauca Colombia, 597 miles
Deschutes Oregon, USA, 250 miles
Eel Northern California, USA, 78 miles
Erne Ireland and Northern Ireland, 60 miles
Essequibo Guyana, 600 miles
Genesee New York, USA, 144 miles
Jordan Utah, USA, 45 miles
Lena Russian Federation, 2735 miles
Little Bighorn, Wyoming and Montana, USA, 80 miles
Magdalena Colombia, 1062 miles
Mojave Southern California, USA, 100 miles
Monongahela Eastern USA, 128 miles
New Virginia and West Virginia, USA, 255 miles
Niagara Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, 39 miles.
Nile Africa, 4150 miles
Ob Russian Federation, 2289 miles
Oswego New York, USA, 24 miles
Otter Creek Vermont, USA, 75 miles
Pend Oreille Washington, USA, 62 miles
Red Minnesota, North Dakota, USA (into Canada), 318 miles
Richelieu Quebec, Canada, 208 miles
Saginaw Michigan, USA, 20 miles.
Saint Johns Florida, USA, 275 miles
San Pedro Mexico (into Arizona), 142 miles
Shennandoah Virginia and West Virginia, USA, 55 miles
Wilamette Oregon, USA, 188 miles
Wallkill New Jersey, USA, length unknown
Yenisey Russian Federation, 2548 miles
Youghiogheny Eastern USA, 151 miles
Source(s):
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopag

[Brian Yare]

Well, the Nile tops that list. How come they don't know how ling a river is in New Jersey though (the Walkill)!

[Mad Dilys]

OK so there some unusual rivers - still say it's not natural.

[Glyphdoctor]

I wrote my whole bachelor's thesis and even published it later as an article on the impact that this unusual phenomenon has had on the ancient Egyptian language and Egyptian Arabic.

[Mad Dilys]

My instinct was right! Thank you Glyph.