Global concern grows as deadly Covid-19 variant ravages rural India

Lacking beds, drugs and oxygen, many hospitals in the world's second-most populous country have been forced to turn away droves of sufferers

India’s coronavirus death toll crossed 250,000 on Wednesday in the deadliest 24 hours since the pandemic began, as the disease rampaged through the countryside, leaving families to weep over the dead in rural hospitals or camp in wards to tend the sick.

The second wave erupted in February, inundating hospitals and medical staff, as well as crematoriums and mortuaries.

Experts still cannot say for sure when numbers will peak and concern is growing about the transmissibility of the variant that is driving infections in India and spreading worldwide.

Indian state leaders clamoured for vaccines to stop the second wave and