international help is being pledged for India
India as it battles a ferocious second
a wave of coronavirus described by the prime
minister narendra modi
as a storm that has shaken the nation
almost
350 000 new infections were recorded
in India in the latest 24-hour period
and
2767 people have died but
experts say the actual numbers are
likely to be much higher
as the epidemic continues to grow
hospitals are under intense pressure
with shortages of beds
and critical supplies including oxygen
in the capital, Delhi covid is now
killing one person
every four minutes our correspondent
yoga email reports
from there the capital is being ravaged
at a frightening speed
with every fire that burns India's
self-belief
is dying
each funeral is a story of personal loss
and national shame Chiranjeevi Malhotra
has been helping to cremate the dead for
decades
now he barely ever stops working
I've never seen such a terrifying the the
situation I can't believe that we're in
the capital of India
people aren't getting oxygen and they're
dying like animals
he says we don't even have enough
resources to cremate them
outside is on the phone organizing
oxygen
for the hospital, she works in not
nothing nothing is being done
I don't know government is sleeping or
what they are doing I am
totally disheartened by the situation
which I am seeing
government is a literal failure a person
cannot live
here in Delhi, a person cannot even die
peacefully in Delhi
she's waiting to cremate her grandfather
who died
she says because there wasn't enough
oxygen
this small hospital in north Delhi is
facing a daily struggle
man, we have been spending sleepless
nights since last one week
I mean at times we feel like crying
because we are not able to help the
patient properly every day this is the
In the same scenario, we are left only with two hours of the year three hours of
death and we are only getting assurance
from the system
and so families are being told to
organize oxygen
at one medical shop, we found people with empty cylinders
waiting to buy their own supply for
loved ones
who urgently need it
for many here the government's promises
of rushing in oxygen
are coming too late families left asking
why something so basic
is unavailable every crematorium we've
been to we've seen body after body being
brought
in it's hard for anyone to keep count
but what workers
have been telling me is that the real
the scale of debts caused by covet 19 in
India
is a lot higher than what official
numbers reflect
and a lot of those who died right now
have done so
because
they couldn't get oxygen
runs a group of volunteers here
even young people are dying it's a very
bad situation
if it keeps getting worse we'll have to
burn bodies by the side of the road
he says
there is a sense of abandonment in this
country
citizens are stepping up to do what a
government should
left to fight a vicious pandemic on
their own
yogurt BBC news Delhi
well tonight the first shipment of British
assistance to India is leaving the UK
other countries are also pledging
support our diplomatic correspondent
Paul Adams
is here in the studio what kinds of help
is being sent for
well Michelle this was really the
the weekend when the world stood up and took
notice of what's going on
in India not least because a wildfire of
infections like
that in a country as large as India 1.4
billion people
is clearly not just a local danger it's
a global danger
and given those numbers anything any
the reaction seems like a bit of a drop-in
the bucket but
those offers are coming in the united
The united kingdom is sending
495 oxygen concentrators 140
ventilators and the foreign secretary
Dominic Raab says there could be more
the EU has activated what it calls its
civil protection mechanism were a member
countries pool their emergency
supplies again with an emphasis on
oxygen and medicines
and we perhaps stung into action by
moves on this side of the Atlantic has
said that it will immediately supply
the raw materials for vaccines and
that'll involve reversing some export
controls put in place
back in February and supply protective
gear
and medical equipment and dr Anthony
Fauci the president's
the chief medical advisor has even suggested
that the united states could supply
India with some of its unused uh
AstraZeneca vaccines that are a vaccine
that has been approved
has not yet been approved for use in the
united states
and it's got lots of it and it doesn't
need it itself it's already supplied
some of it to Mexico and Canada earlier
in the year so it is coming under some pressure
to do that for India as well paul Adams
thank you very much
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