Here — at the Luxbagan market jetty — the family got some chira from a non-governmental organization. But drinking water continued to be scarce. Lahiripur was as bad as Anandapur, said Sandeepa’s father Gobinda Gharami. On one side of the embankment, the river stretched up to the horizon; on the other side, innumerable carcasses lay rotting on dry patches, by the roadside, and in ponds.

As Sandeepa sank, the local village panchayat representative, Ashok Mondal, told the family he was helpless. “You can see the situation for yourself. No relief has come, no government official,” he told the Gharamis. When Sandeepa died, Mondal helped them find space on the riverbank to bury her.

Like in Anandapur, quacks are ruling in Lahiripur too. In the absence of government agencies, ‘agents’ are supplying bottles of saline for Rs 70 each. A man who identified himself as Gopinath Mondal told this paper he has been treating 25-30 patients every day. “I am an allopathy practitioner but I have no degree,” he said. “Enteric diseases are breaking out all around.”

The Express found the tiny, one-room Lahiripur sub-primary health centre locked. The government-appointed sebika (nurse) could not be traced. She is likely to have left following the cyclone, people said.

Gosaba Block Development Officer Amiya Bhusan Chakrabarty said he had no official information on deaths from enteric disease. Cases like Sandeepa’s, where the body had been buried, would not count, he said. “As of now, we have 555 cases of enteric attacks in Gosaba block but no deaths,” Chakrabarty added.