GUWAHATI: Authorities in a remote Indian state on Thursday said they were working hard to prevent the eruption of epidemics in crowded camps sheltering some 400,000 people after weeks of deadly ethnic violence.

Some 250 physicians were working “round-the clock” to head off any outbreaks of sickness in the camps where thousands of families have taken shelter after violence erupted in the northeastern state of Assam.

At least 77 people have died in the clashes that began in early July, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told parliament in New Delhi.

“We've sounded a health alert and asked all doctors and paramedics to fan out to 250 relief camps where people displaced in the clashes are sheltered,” state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in Guwahati, Assam's largest city. Our doctors have treated more than 150,000 people and this figure is not a small number, he said.—AFP