Newspaper owner kills Press authority official

ISTANBUL

The poisoning has mostly affected children in the district, reports say. DHA photo

At least 1,300 people have applied to hospitals with poisoning complaints in the Terme district of the northern province of Samsun.

The Provincial Health Administrator Mustafa Kasapoğlu advised Terme residents to not drink tap water without boiling.

Since Sept. 25, a drastically increasing number of people have applied to the Terme Hospital with complaints of diarrhea and hypothermia; the number of patients reportedly reached 700 by that night.
Kasapoğlu said the applications to the hospital started Sept. 24 but that the increase began Sept. 25 and continued with acceleration through yesterday afternoon. The large amount of patients points to a possibility that the tap water is infected, according to officials.

Kasapoğlu said on first analysis, the chlorine levels in the tap water turned out to be insufficient. Turkish waterworks uses chloride as disinfectant. “The samples taken since 6 p.m. [Sept. 25] had enough levels of … chlorine. All the samples were sent to Samsun and Ankara Public Health Laboratories and all water storage areas will be checked and cleaned while chlorine will be applied.” He said a large number of the patients were children, adding that due to security measures, the chlorine levels in tap water could be slightly higher than normal and therefore the residents of Terme should drink tap water only after boiling it well.