Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has shipped much-needed 80 metric tons of liquid oxygen to India. Adani Group and Linde Company are coordinating in handling the shipment.
Thanking Saudi Arabia’s ministry of health, Indian Embassy in Riyadh tweeted, “Our heartfelt thanks to Ministry of Health Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for all their help, support and cooperation”.
Retweeting it, Gautam Adani, Chairman of Adani Group wrote, “Thank you @IndianEmbRiyadh . Indeed, actions speak louder than words. We are on an urgent mission to secure oxygen supplies from across the world. This first shipment of 4 ISO cryogenic tanks with 80 tons of liquid oxygen is now on its way from Dammam to Mundra”.
Currently, India is in dire need of oxygen due to an unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases. In the past few days, some of the major hospitals sent SOS messages to authorities reporting a shortage of oxygen.
Recently, 20 COVID-19 patients died at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi due to low supply of oxygen. At a private hospital in Amritsar, six patients died on Saturday allegedly due to a shortage of oxygen.
Apart from Saudi Arabia, India is also arranging oxygen supply from other countries. It started airlifting oxygen tankers from Singapore too.
COVID-19 cases
Meanwhile, India recorded 3,49,691 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike since the pandemic broke out last year. The country has also recorded 2,767 new deaths due to COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
The total COVID-19 cases count increased to 1,69,60,172 cases, while 1,92,311 people have succumbed to the infection so far.
In Telangana, the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing day by day. As per a government bulletin issued on Sunday providing details as of 8 pm on April 24, the state reported 8126 fresh infections and 38 fatalities in a single day.