Twenty people died due to sunstroke in Odisha over the last three days as the state was reeling under intense heatwave conditions, an official statement said.

Since Friday, a total of 99 suspected sunstroke deaths were reported by different districts. After post-mortem and inquiry, 20 were confirmed as sunstroke deaths, while two deaths happened due to other causes, it said.

An investigation is underway in the rest of the cases, it added.

Prior to this, 42 suspected sunstroke deaths were reported, and of them six cases were confirmed, and it was found that another six deaths happened due to other causes, the statement said.

The deaths were mostly reported from Bolangir, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Sonepur, Sundergarh and Balasore districts, officials said.

Chief Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena and Special Relief Commissioner Satyabrata Sahu reviewed the situation with the district collectors on Sunday.

They instructed the district administrations to implement the advisory on heatwave, and take precautionary measures.

The districts were also asked to ensure post-mortem examination of every suspected sunstroke death for sanction of ex-gratia.

Also, a joint inquiry by the local revenue officer and the local medical officer needs to be conducted to ascertain the exact cause of each death, officials said.

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