1994 plague epidemic in Surat

Surat plague

Date	1994 (1994)
Location	Surat, Gujarat, India
Cause	possibly Yersinia pestis endemic
Outcome	1.5 million people migrated
Deaths	52

In 1994, a pneumonic plague epidemic broke out in India. 'Surat', Gujarat, was particularly affected. 52 people lost their lives and close to a quarter of the city's citizens fled the area for fear of being quarantined. Although the plague only lasted a little over two weeks, it caused widespread panic. Tourism was negatively affected, flights to India were cancelled, and some planes from India were fumigated at airports.

Large scale flooding occurred due to the heavy rain and clogged sewers. This caused dead animals to remain out in the open, which added to the already unhygienic conditions. Many people were afraid that the refugees would disperse the plague and potentially spread it around the world, but this never happened probably because of the efficient response by the Indian health authorities.

Much like the Black Death that spread through medieval Europe, some questions still remain unanswered about the 1994 epidemic in Surat.

Initial questions about whether it was an epidemic of plague arose because the Indian health authorities were unable to culture Yersinia pestis, but this could have been due to lack of sophisticated laboratory equipment. Yet there are several lines of evidence strongly suggesting that it was a plague epidemic: blood tests for Yersinia were positive, a number of individuals showed antibodies against Yersinia and the clinical symptoms displayed by the affected were all consistent with the disease being plague.