Indian customers drink so-called country-made liquor at a liquor shop in Calcutta, Eastern India, 23 October 2013. Cheap and illegally brewed alcohol is usually bought by poor people such as daily wage workers and farmers. Deaths from drinking illicit liquor, often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency, are not uncommon in India. Tainted alcohol caused death of more than 167 people died in eastern West Bengal state in December 2011, some 107 people had died in Gujarat in July 2009. EPA/PIYAL ADHIKARY Since Wednesday over 100 people, suffering from vomiting, stomach ache and diarrhoea, have needed hospital treatment in the Kallakurichi district, 250 km (150 miles) by road from the state capital Chennai, the spokesperson said.
The state government said it had taken disciplinary action against at least 10 officials, including the district's chief administrator and its police chief.
"I was shocked and saddened to hear the news ... Action has also been taken against the officials who failed to prevent it," Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said in a post on X.
Police arrested four people over the sale of illicit liquor and seized 200 litres of the methanol-mixed alcoholic drink, the state government said.
Deaths from illegally produced alcohol, known locally as "hooch" or "country liquor", are a regular occurrence in India, where many cannot afford branded spirits.
The Tamil Nadu government said it was also taking steps to identify people involved in the production of methanol - a toxic chemicalnormally used for industrial purposes.
A video from ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake, showed healthcare officials carrying patients in ambulances into a hospital while another shot showed several people standing outside a mortuary in Kallakurichi.
More than a dozen people died last year in a similar incident in a nearby district of Tamil Nadu.
(Editing by Sudipto Ganguly, Michael Perry and Mark Heinrich)