the wild. this international relief effort has become a major mission. united states delivering supplies worth more than $100000000.00 in the coming days to provide urgent relief to our partners in india. but there's also frustration india is densely populated and yet to mass gatherings including fist state elections in west bengal have been allowed to go ahead. people have been gathering a lot there's been a lot of gathering in terms of people going out to the markets there have been some rallies going on and people have been going to different festivals. for all health workers across india the situation has become a nightmare it's reached a point where crisis is a very mild word for it. but the battle to keep this country breathing

must go on if you don't have for more of what's driving the coven 1000 crisis in india i'm joined by just benita in poona india thanks for being with us dr. another day with record high infection rates in india how do you account for these extraordinary numbers. i suppose there are 2 or 3 different readings on the spec we're going to have to consider the 1st is many of plots letting down the isle of god or one of the last 34 months when the infection that eve would have gone significant yes probably is august september so that has resulted in to be mixing with people who look more care less next and so on and so forth in addition to opening number of economy which means people who want to getting out of their houses and hands more interaction with the other and that is where the

problem lies but it's also very important that all what is here the leaders that population young and he looks up to reach out political leaders as well as if there are problems but peculiarly bad examples of how things should not be portrayed because there was. one sticking place where hundreds of thousands of people are i should say probably a 1000000 people who were collected particle knee deep in water and or sorting through 2 different steve stanton were going to go that which were addressed by. the senior v.p. there is upping on the party and every rich man want better or worse there are people who. believe that one of the bunch of you ok. yes that is also the widest mutual to sponsor the virus itself indeed which are

apparently there is another variant that's been identified there that is wreaking havoc on the population starting to morrow every adult in india i understand is eligible to get a job a vaccination but some vaccination centers are closing because they've run out of back scene where are the vaccines. this is a good question in the sense of the production capacity of the largest manufacturer in the word feed i mean india has significant bottom feeder was used for approximating in the beginning to get indian population but the capacity of that instability or sort is not enough to convert the people so essentially the fact one of them you get when you go to the 2nd thing you said was a pot of fire take a very simple act scene so even 2 together will be shewn and pulled out see number 3 was very very fata made it clear evidence i've lost

a studio 60 plus age group for the 1st time after that we're going to send a song after 45 years in the fall of egypt will these 2 hour or so students do completing their pupils this approximation earlier and are we going to buy in for 80 knots the government in india has been severely criticized for how it's managed the crisis you yourself said they provided to some of the political leaders at least and religious leaders a bad example or officials now recognizing how bad things really are. officials are they said 19 because despite promises the law has been for strict if they are bad the acknowledgment has to be me who i use that for is not necessarily talked about except for a shot so bad goes without saying nobody is illegal except his or her for one of

the being government of india that uses billing to accept in must be the hell gifts in the form of oxygen cylinder and b.p. eaves and regulators it almost ensure that the family has said in and. got infrastructure is far from any quip still in that sense that economics unit is very much there dr balt thank you very much for taking time to talk with us that was rather just the need to improve it india. and we'll have much more on the situation in india coming up in our special coverage in just under 10 minutes you stay tuned for that. now let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world today russian authorities have declared opposition politician alexina bonnie's organization to be a terrorist and extremist group in anticipation of the ruling regional offices of

political network disbanded on thursday a lawyer defending the bonis anticorruption foundation even pablo announced an end to operations he was due to it detained by police early on friday. the volcano in guatemala is gushing lava residents are concerned it could spread to nearby communities including the densely populated capital guatemala city just 25 kilometers away the volcano has had high levels of activity over the past 2 months and the small caribbean island of st vincent is also reeling from volcanic activity several parts of the island have been battered by heavy fall from the lot so for a volcano which erupted in early april after being dormant for decades now heavy rains have also caused flooding and mudslides causing further damage across the island. and trust regulators have charged. with abusing its market dominance saying that the company forces developers to use its own in

payment system to offer their products in the store the charge could lead to a fine of as much as 10 percent of apple's global revenue. in israel it least 44 people have been killed and around 150 others injured in a stampede of a religious gathering attended by tens of thousands it happened at mount meron in the northern part of the country where ultra orthodox jews were holding an all night prayer and dance celebration. wrapped in ecstatic song and dance footage from social media shows the crowd at the annual celebration shortly before disaster struck. at around 1 in the morning i witnesses said they could feel a crush beginning to build. and. there was

a terrible load and what happened then was like a carousel one person pushed another person so everyone was pushed right and left and after 20 minutes people started suffocating so they wanted to get out but no one was able to get out. there were people under me who weren't breathing anymore there were horrible screams of i can't breathe and slowly there were also places where the screams had stopped. my legs were trapped i couldn't move them. face down i could lift my head a little. i tried not to strain too much and keep calm and strengthen my faith god will save us. mayhem unfolded rescue teams rushed to the scene ferrying the injured to ambulances. children separated from their parents were hoisted into the arms of emergency workers desperately trying to reunite them with their families. 5 police closed off road access

and the military was called in to assist efforts to clear the area. of the worst. terrible disaster on. the floor of fire the. authorities say panic broke out on the steps in this narrow passageway after people slipped and fell and those behind them stumbled. many of the victims were either trampled or suffocated to death. it was the 1st large scale religious gathering to be held legally since israel lifted most coronavirus restrictions. but despite their successful handling of the pandemic health authorities have warned against holding an event of this size. religious festival is particularly popular with israel's ultra-orthodox community. police report nearly 100000 people attended the gathering which they say

is 4 to 5 times as many as should have been in a location like this. i'm joined now by dog my zal whom you saw in that report he's with the volunteer medical services association united. mr michael thanks for being with us you've been at the scene of the stampede tell us how could this happen. yes that was the terrible terrible night your work started out the best of all joy and happiness and then it's turned into a real their worst tragedy. i think the simple answer to your question the many many people thousands of people in a very very small perimeter and simply overwhelmed me it could belittle you a little and i believe it which you saw in the radio people trying to. leave this event this of abrasion that was taking place it happens every year

what went wrong this time. so i think this isn't it isn't something that every year we discussed in preparation as a risk to the could happen because of the amount of people what i think was different this year than every year was 2 main factor and number one is it's the 1st major event as you mentioned 2 to occur after listening closely and restrictions and people that have been locked away and not participating in any events nor are religious nor civilian events for a year and a half. encourage them to do it the want to go out and practice their roots religious beliefs and ceremonies that's the one hand and the 2nd is the fact that it's on the weekend and because they are orthodox people so they have to be back before sunset on friday so it all raise all the pressure down to this one very

short period of time before thursday night i think a combination of both. what might have been the major factors that led to the overwhelming of this small area as to muzzle tank you very much for talking with us today that was doffed my eyes will vice president of operations with united have saddam. you're watching g.w. news i'm terry march and coming up next we have a special program focusing on the covert 19 crisis in india. a very i'm david and this is climate change sex. happiness in 3 books. this is the book for you. to get smarter for free you know where your books are new to. train kids they love flushing

weeks extravagant outfits and glitter glitter glitter. they're fighting against prejudice i don't called cable life. for recognition. of stores the big state. trying to it's starts may 17th on w. broadcasting from berlin this is a d w news special edition on india's unfolding coronavirus crisis more than a 1000000 and a half cases in just a week and thousands of deaths every day india is over have come a totems are working overtime hospitals can take in more patients and some medical supplies are running you know how did it come to this and will things get worse

before they get better. welcome to this special on the tsunami that india's 2nd wave of covert cases has turned out to be but it's a tsunami that hits the country every day in case numbers more than 380000 in the past 24 hours and the numbers of dead more than $3500.00 india bureau chief is reporting through this growing crisis and joins me now from delhi another day and another deadly record for infections. that's right british bad numbers coming out. another regular shifts the number of new infections today a record of the number of deaths in delhi and hype was pretty beat up 21 percent

across the country hospitals. as you mentioned and in track the cheaper the obvious stuff is met the prime minister and he's often medically hospitalised even for not meeting the person and so the most i'm hearing is that also the military hospital has a pretty full capacity in another development some 350 scientists hype the piece to the government to provide the most scientific data for example the sequencing variants and newton's tracking clinical results from vaccines help people not testing to see they need this work to granular data to get a better sense of what this guy says this night another dreamed in mind to what we are going to write down something the hospital beds and oxygen that we are running out in guinea but also space in commission and very simply not enough space for the number of bodies that have been built and a number of the midst of all of this. to begin vaccinations for anyone above the

age of 18 from saturday how prepared is the government. not very benefit comes on duration it was much touted that on the 1st if you want to be 18 could be vaccinated as it turns out to simply not enough vaccine supplies under india's 2nd structure the government of india and get sick number of vaccines to each state and the rest states themselves most peculiar and some of the states finally don't have not back seems to be a thinking if they did mean. the start of this expansion of the vaccines and some. cities like mumbai have stopped vaccination or to get the opportunity is because they have the supplies. back to the government because that's the mission he can distract you and break down to change the constitution and become a nun and other countries are all sure helping in there's a lot of aid that is already in is this enough or does the government need more aid

really government in time so maybe you don't seem very proud of this says the lines but this time you get on the need to be happy to welcome some is some heat if you stop it coming in some steam on the reef the decent thing is how france can be used to people who need it most not just in the 1st question because this is serious is this aid enough this crisis of dispute in a country dislodge i think all of this more would be back. i mean that your own thank you very much for that to dr news bureau chief in delhi please stay safe the definite chaos of the 2nd wave of koran alatas infections is in stark contrast to the fast last year india had dealt with that by imposing what was called the world's strictest lock down india streets fell empty and coronavirus case counts dropped eventually seemingly contrary to warnings about the dangers faced.

even before the corona virus spread around the world epidemiologist warned that india could see the worst of it. some of the most crowded cities on earth coupled with an ailing health care system foreshadowed disaster but the 1st wave of the pandemic seemed to have spared india at the end of march 2020 prime minister narendra modi ordered a total lockdown of the entire population for 3 weeks the most severe step taken anywhere in the world at that point. it appeared to be a success by the beginning of summer the country of 1300000000 people was still recording a small number of daily cases. when monsoon season head cases rose steadily peaking at over $90000.00 per day but in october with the virus and decline government scientists speculated that india had reached herd immunity. and

spoke at the world economic forum at the end of january declaring the virus defeated. and she. lives. see you for the. entire if you will and that is all of your trying to do i believe and. when india began vaccinating it took pride in exporting vaccines to other countries in need. then came spring and with it the spread of 2 new coronavirus variants british an indian cases began rising the government imposed some restrictions but millions gathered to celebrate the holy festival of colors and mayla of the ganges river. india's 2nd wave was swift and

unstoppable the case count in april has doubled every 10 days and exponential curve . even the most optimistic models predict india could see another month of this before the 2nd wave peaks. to double correspondent joins me now from delhi you've been in the thick of this deepening crisis speaking to patients doctors what are they saying will things get worse before they get better. graceful patients simply have to find treatment it seems people are being carried to the gates of hospitals completely out of breath. and there is no room cannot be helped push and it is all of these patients this doubting social media twitter looking for beds medicine and oxygen as well but those relatives who managed to get locked box and put it into a hospital that is considered of the she already doctors are under immense chest

insists that they will continue striving on the keys to supporting him everybody in the house and this in itself is a massive challenge they do point out to me india had laid down its guard and that could be why this is as massive as it is but they doubt he thought it's coming to then it's travelling as well to not only cheap these patients but to even give them the medicines and oxygen speaking of. the prime minister the more they have had the while how to effectively battle the pandemic what do indians now say to that plane. pretty safe to say that there has been criticism when most across the spectrum not just journalists and the opposition but many citizens as well have come out to ask what exactly happened how did we make such massive misdeeds for example warning that supplies of oxygen should be shored up by purity

if they were not there is a crisis when. you're in there surely are being hit very hard as well but i think what's concerning for many people is the government's own denial well in the regions of the state that the have made in the handling of this crisis as as well as simply as much the health minister india had said that india has turned the endgame of the battle damage and earlier today he pointed out that india has the. there are concerns that if you do not acknowledge a problem you cannot solve it. trust government by british indians will follow golf you gave in moscow they will respond to restrictions. but the trust and meant to mean very diminishing so a lot of political discourse in this country well people are only entrenched into

that so what's the government or those who criticize and oppose it now or more and more gifty or doesn't the government also question what exactly happened how can it get. that's affecting everything. you're watching a special edition of india's crisis still to come in the program researchers around the world are trying to find out. just how deadly is it can be done to prevent it spread. the coronavirus pandemic is having a massive impact on the system the mental health impact on people who are not sick with the virus we speak with young indians trying to cope. and dozens of countries around the world including the u.k. the u.s. and russia sending aid to india planes carrying oxygen generating plants ventilators antiviral drugs and protective equipment for india's health workers

have been landing in india for days the european union has activated its civil protection mechanism and is also sending shipments of medicine and equipment to help fight the spread of course in india let's bring in. the european commissioner for crisis management he joins me now from brussels mr. what kind of support is the e.u. providing to india. india requested assistance in the following for them they ask for oxygen oxygen devices like concentrators generators and cylinders and antiviral medicines as well as ventilators upon the receiving such a request we can immediately activated of civil protection mechanism we reached out to all member states of the opinion and we have received extremely generous into

quick response by now more than half of e.u. member states have already offered assistance on these particular items that india requested what about vaccines scientists are saying that india also requires vaccines is the e.u. planning to send vaccines in there. india has so far not requested vaccines from the european union super direction mechanism works in the manner that we respond to specific request in the specific requests from india so far has not yet included but says is there a plan within the european union that if india what a request for vaccines vaccines would be readily available from the e.u. . i would not exclude that the fact is that almost half of vaccines produced in european union are being exported from day one so utopian unit has already displayed solidarity with the rest of the world and i would not exclude

its readiness in the future to also share its success can you put a number on this readiness to vaccines how many millions of dollars can the e.u. spare at a moment's notice. i don't have the current number but i do know that. about $150000000.00 doses have been administered so far within european union and almost the same amount of the scenes have been exported from the european union including to the so-called kovacs facility which is intended to provide the looks. to $92.00 low and middle income countries all over the world it also calls growing for vaccine technology know how to be shared with other countries that can produce these vaccines is the e.u. open to sharing the technology. european union supports. and voluntary licensing in order to ramp up the production of the vaccine was

initially the big issue facing huge hope as well as the world was limited production capacity this has now been improved also through the measures like color and licensing are you why did that kinder for pandemic that we are seeing deepening every day in india with potentially harm india as the supply of vaccines that india can deliver to the rest of the world including the e.u. is that the concern in the e.u. right now. we are concerned because of the situation in india very much 1st of all because of the situation affecting indians themselves but 2nd also because india is one of the biggest if not the biggest producer of acceptance worldwide and until the current crisis india has exported tens and tens of millions of folks since 2 just in india to other parts of the world this

exports have now stopped and this may have negative impact on the availability of exodus is in large parts of the world so we are concerned and we will try to find a way to make up for that. yanick not just the european commission of a crisis management thank you so much for joining us from brussels. a new w. attention of the corona virus in india has been partly blamed for the rapid increase in cases it's said to be more infectious and deadly than earlier variants share is what is known so far about it the west indian state of maharashtra is weatherby 1617 a variant of the current a virus was 1st recorded in december 2020 the strain has 2 mutations on it spike protein that's the bit of the virus that gets into our body cells both genetic mutations of cropped up before around the world in other strains of the

current virus and when they did they willing to the virus passing between people more easily they were also linked to the virus being better able to get past the body's defenses briefly in the 1st method increase the life of across india more 50 more for the thing that if thing that what might be happening is that something that it was the sort of between people is very rapidly moving through the population of people who are yet to contract infection and therefore pretty often. but how quickly does this new type spread to get a handle on that research is need to be able to see when people have it and when they die from it which means sequencing the viruses genes that research has been extremely limited so far in india out of millions of cases in this new wave only around a 1000 sequences have been published meanwhile scientists across the world are working to find out how deadly b.

1617 is as the number of people dying continues to rise there on says can't come quickly enough join me now for more is dr lancelot pinto a palmer knowledge just an epidemiologist of the renowned hindutva hospital in mumbai dr venter welcome do scientists in india have enough data to be able to understand the b 161 double mutant variant. you know i don't think we have enough data and i think far more sequencing needs to be done than what this country done to truly understand the transmission dynamics to understand where that it's been associated with the infections with. questions that aren't immune askin questions that are on video and send questions around transmissibility i think we have very limited information at the moment but dr print to why is that i think the 1st reports of this virus became available in october last year then again in december and then in macho earlier this year the government in fact had

a press release why did not have scientific data as yet i think to a certain extent that's limited by the expense associated with hulu genome sequencing my understanding is that it's not maybe inexpensive to do but yes you know a lot of that is because i think maybe the gravity of knowing these patients is not fully comprehended and understood because it may not necessarily convert to treatment outcomes of implications immediately iran has to be fascinated when it comes to these kinds of things and you want to doctor who's working with covert 1000 patients on a daily basis what instance variant doing to the body that's making it so deadly. so i'm not really sure about that it's more deadly than the 1st time around but we do know for a fact that it appears to be a lot more transmissible than the 1st time it out so the 1st time around when the average rate of infection among close contacts was about 10 to 15 percent which

meant that in a family of 5 of or fight for every 5 individuals who were exposed to a patient one would get infected this time and only a few leasing in their families and the world faces people attending a mad it said to me for example a significant proportion of them turning positive which suggests that it's highly transmissible and i think when that denominator becomes as huge as it is right now even if a small proportion of individuals need hospitalization need intensive get that going let's do a whopping number and i think that's what we're really seeing i don't think they're absolutely convinced that it's more. the agent of the bias yet given hope transmissible this is there any actions that people can take to avoid getting infected i think by this is unknown to mutate good or not it's going to keep mutating with the aim of making the most efficient way to prevent that is not send rapid vaccination so i think if you racks next innate enough individuals you prevent this constant cycles of transmission and

transmission is eventually associated with muting so you know this is called selection pressure mutants that that devil up if people are vaccinated enough and that transmission cycle is broken i think i think we would succeed in preventing the emergence of new mutants and be against you want to see mohsen drop or vaccinations how hopeful are you. given the vaccine stalking the country. not many hopeful at the moment but i think things are changing you know i think there is this aid which is coming from the u.s. the u.s. is sending us all a stock of vaccines which are very optimistic and hopeful about i think of a certain supply cheating hurdles which have kind of which have been cleared at the moment and hopefully that will allow us to damp up production i think the government has also provided some sort of an incentive in terms of fines to the vaccine manufacture does to scale up if they do it fast enough i think that is open

on the con i think the other vaccines have also been put on a fast track to approval so the more the number of vaccines that end of the country i think greater the probability of being even to rule scale up vaccination what is your honest prognosis doctor do you think or care stumble as we continue to rise in india before this stabilizes i was to awaiting the peak of infections so i know for a fact that the state of my best of the state in which i practice is kind of like going out over the last 4 to 5 days it does have a number of new infections that we have to be going out of course we know that mark malloch the staying in to lag by about what's the sole you know unfortunately i think the need for it and beds the need for a ventilator is still not beat unfortunately in the city of mumbai if you look at the trains from last year the city of the state of modest on the city of mumbai where that was defected initially and then the rest of the country followed suit but so did the recovery battens so based on the recovery battens that i'm seeing in

mumbai and in the state of modest ah you know there is reason to be optimistic that within the next 2 or 3 days hopefully the rest of the country can follow as well dr corder a lot of thought hard seeing coventry have been prevented with better preparation. i think mistakes were made all around i think in hindsight lot of people probably figured it a lot of things that they did in terms of slowing down in terms of gatherings that that occurred which which possibly should not have happened given the fact that we nor over the last one you know that gatherings of people enclosed spaces in crowded spaces and close contact it's all a bunch of individuals is the most efficient we have sprayed so in hindsight i do think that we could have done a better job in preventing. spread that the mosque level at an individual level as well i think we got very optimistic incomplete and after the numbers went to an all

time low in the months of december and january after we survived through the valley after we survived who knew us without seeing spikes i think all of us collectively let our guard down and i think betraying the by price for that so yes this could have been prevented to a certain extent. but i mean that's what really amazing in hindsight now unfortunately not to print the icon to magine the stress you were on your colleagues and having to work under on a daily basis how are you and your colleagues coping i think on a stretch in a lot of the us you know i think you don't see light at the end of that which is friday which is a very difficult circumstance to work on when you know every time you see a glimmer of hope unfortunately that is another way of that that pulls you down i think i think all if it was. are closed. due to the end of patience to the end the fed has the interest i think one of us and a lot more effective been

a lot less patient than we used to be dusty. but that's just the way it is i think talk to lots of up and throw public knowledge just an epidemiologist of him to the hospital in mumbai thank you so much for joining us and thank you for the work that you do thank thank you for having. as dr pinto alluded to there india's coronavirus health emergency masks another medical crisis that's been bubbling away he didn't from view from the last year itself the impact on the mental health of its people repeated lockdowns death in this is taking a toll across all age groups in all settings one and rural but with a sizable population of young people the impact is especially hard on them. breakdowns feel anxiety these other words 29 year old uses when asked about how she's coping with the 2nd wave of pool with 90. water parents are called positive

and help out the has been in the hospital for days brussels only when an emotional me happens in the 2nd wave my dad became a victim and a very serious one and it just made me realize how crazy things are at the moment runs an online mental health platform mind. which connects people to terrorists. and the statistics are enough to tell her that she is not alone. about feelings i-t. depression and grief that many are already experiencing she says a lot of young people who may end up suffering with p.t.s.d. or post-traumatic stress disorder last year there were about $50.00 to $60.00 parity that were coming in in one day and right now from the last 3 to 4 weeks at least that has started to 50 already the 2nd wave has been catastrophic images of people gasping for breath and collapsing in front of hospitals where no beds or

oxygen are available have impacted the mental wellbeing of many some experts are convinced this wave has triggered a mental health epidemic of its own. service in the us and says many young people who come to her feel hopeless and anxious over an uncertain future we're also collectively going to all. right now. on anxiety. we all know where and which means that none of us. to handle and. as difficult as. she gave us in ads that being constantly connected with the world online and acts. sensing new information why helpful is also impacting the country's youth. by this secondly to. make the majority and of these very very generating very distressing in regions. of

the west 8 and 8 in reading some yes and it's obviously affecting us i don't think it's an experience that any of us could ever recover from yes we need help out on this yes he more. health conscious there are. plenty of increased conversations about both. have been doing what they can to help my appetite in the quest for emergency aid on social media they say that while there is an overpowering feeling of helplessness there is also some optimism in the way young people have been mobilizing help in these times. it is a work at mine because that has been helping her cope plaque i'm back from the hospital in the evening i'm just working because i know if i'm not going to distract myself i'm describing as she struggles to maintain a positive mindset. she's doing everything she can to bring her father back home

soon. and joining me from popal in central india is dr one of the on a public health policy expert dr bon welcome now you have been looking of the mental health impact of the coronavirus emergency in india do you think young people are particularly vulnerable. thanks for having me yes absolutely young people are certainly quite one another but you know this has been an extended much more than a year of lockdowns in the stoppage of schools colleges just a lack of certain a dui then things will improve they've also seen in lots of cases illicit within family losses within family but ups not being able to reach out to friends and meet them in the way they were able to have support systems earlier they have been increasing case of domestic violence and all of that obviously has a toll specially now i think with the increasing number of cases the negativity all around the visual placing on t.v. it is adding to the mental health. i'd like to talk

a bit about the frontline was the medical professionals doctors nurses medical attendants were literally at the frontline of this crisis and have been for more than a yeah we were just talking to a doctor from mumbai who was trying to explain to us what they go through on a daily basis what is the impact on medical health professionals such as these. but there is a lot of things id that is about them as fat as they've seen many colleagues get infected they know that they are taking great personal risk in offering care obviously but you know given the kind of profession they are in they obviously paradice patient care over their personal well being but it does come at a cost because every day when they go back home they are faithful about taking back the infection to their families many of them live with young ones many of them live it and then the family members and it is quite stressful you know we have seen many providers unfortunately die during this pandemic and you know that many of them.