Diseased Fish Kill 40 in Northeast India

Fish afflicted with a disease that may have started during floods in Bangladesh have killed at least 40 people in the hills of northeast India, prompting a ban on fish sales that has thrown 300,000 fish farmers out of work, a senior official said Friday.

P. C. Boro, director of fisheries in Assam state, also said that at least 170 people--most of them poor people who bought the bad fish because it was cheaper--have been taken seriously ill since August.