In the rural expanse of Guntur, Turakapalem is a close-knit community, with most residents working land, doing small trades or taking employment at stone crusher units and jute mills. Sprawling near a hill, the village is home of 2,517 people in 827 families, living in the steady rhythm of hope, stability and shared happiness. In 2025, however, a mysterious malady descended on Turakapalem, picking off 29 people in a span of just five months and plunging the once-thriving village in grief and a desperate search for answers.
The village is currently under a health emergency, and government teams are visiting households and compiling health profiles of all residents to find the cause and prevent further deaths.
A shattered family
At her modest house, 45-year-old Menthula Sujatha stands by the portrait of her husband Ratna Kumar. Sujatha, a farmhand, and Ratna Kumar, a supervisor at a stone crusher unit, had been married for 30 years and raised two sons — Anil Kumar, a budding software engineer and Paul Chakravarthi, who is pursuing his MS in the U.S. Theirs was a life built from the scratch and just when the success of their sons was about to bring relief and happiness to their family, tragedy struck.
