The number of tea plantation workers who have died after consuming toxic illicit liquor in Assam has gone up to 80. Nearly 300 have been hospitalised. The deaths come less than two weeks after more than 100 people died in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand from drinking illegally produced alcohol.

The Assam government has ordered investigations into two separate incidents in Golaghat and Jorhat districts. According to the police, the number of dead is likely to increase as more people from a plantation in Golaghat, 310 km east of Guwahati, were taken to the hospital after they consumed the liquor on Thursday night.