Four persons, three of them children, have died following bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting in Bihar's Bhagalpur district, officials said on 13th October.

All the four casualties have been reported from Kahalgaon sub-division of the district, with three of the deceased Shivani Kumari and Arjun Kumar (both aged two years) and Satyam Kumar (3) hailing from Silhan village of Sanhaula block, the officials said. Sanhaula Primary Health Centre in-charge P K Sinha said: "it remains to be ascertained what ailment afflicted the deceased children since they died within three to four hours of complaints of symptoms like diarrhoea and vomiting, which is unusual".

Similar symptoms have been noticed in nearly 20 children of the village, one of them being the deceased Arjun Kumars twin brother Karan who has been rushed to a referral hospital in neighbouring Jharkhand. Some other children have also been sent to the adjoining state or a referral hospital in Bhagalpur town, he said. As a precautionary measure, an ambulance has been deployed at the village and the staff manning the vehicle have been provided with medicines and ORS for administering in case of an emergency, he added. Meanwhile, health officials also confirmed the death of 35-year-old Gautam Sah who passed away in Birbanna village under Kahalgaon block of the sub-division after a severe bout of diarrhoea and vomiting.

A 55-year-old woman Rukmini Devi, a resident of the same village, complained of similar symptoms on Sunday following which she was rushed to the sub-divisional hospital while some other villagers were being treated for the symptoms at private clinics. A flood-like situation had arisen in 15 districts of Bihar, including Bhagalpur, after the state witnessed 255 mm of rainfall between September 27 and 29. Meanwhile, district administration claimed that spraying of disinfectants was being undertaken on a war footing in all corners of the district.