UPDATE: Uzbekistan's carbon monoxide death toll for the past week has risen to 18, after a third fatal case, emergency officials in Fergana region say.
UPDATE: Uzbekistan's carbon monoxide death toll for the past week has risen to 18, after a third fatal case, emergency officials in Fergana region say.
Two families accounted for 12 of the deaths, seven in Chimyon village on October 25 and five in Kokand on November 1. The wider toll now covers three separate poisoning cases in the region.
Officials link the deaths to German Vaillant two-circuit boilers that were decommissioned in Germany, smuggled into Uzbekistan as parts, repaired by hand and sold as new. Anyone with such a boiler is urged to stop using it immediately.
Carbon monoxide has no smell and no colour, which is why faulty heaters kill whole households in their sleep. With heating season under way, the warning is aimed at every home using an uncertified boiler.
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