# What are the risk of drinking water contaminatedby a dead body?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 26, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251 "2011-05-26T03:52:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/1 "2011-05-26T03:52:35Z")
Recently, there’s a murder case where the murderer dumped the body of the victim into the water tank of a high-rise apartment. Fortunately, it was discovered about relatively soon.
But let’s say the body is in the tank for half a day , or even more. What are the health risks of drinking the contaminated water?
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/2 "2011-05-26T07:19:57Z")
If it’s a fresh body and in there just a day, the water may be contaminated with fecal and other bacteria. Residual chlorination in the water supply might even take care of this.
The really big/bad risks happen later, when the body decomposes and contributes nutrients to the water, permitting bacteria to flourish.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/3 "2011-05-26T09:04:51Z")
Once, in the army, a bird got into our water tank and died. Took a couple of days until the figured out what happened, and by then, the entire company was out of commission and stayed that way for a week.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/4 "2011-05-26T18:41:00Z")
It depends at least somewhat on what the person died of - if the corpse was contaminated with cholera, for example, your life is going to be all full of suck.
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### Author:  [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/5 "2011-05-28T09:20:54Z")
Haha! A Singaporean! I wonder, in this case, was the victim drowned in the tank, or dead before put in the tank? It seems pretty hard to move a dead body to the roof.
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/6 "2011-05-28T10:37:07Z")
there were speculations that they had sex and/or bathed in the tank…
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### Author:  [@samjones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samjones)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-risk-of-drinking-water-contaminatedby-a-dead-body/583251/7 "2011-05-28T12:52:59Z")
> [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](#):
>
> Recently, there’s a murder case where the murderer dumped the body of the victim into the water tank of a high-rise apartment. Fortunately, it was discovered about relatively soon.
>
> But let’s say the body is in the tank for half a day , or even more. What are the health risks of drinking the contaminated water?
It’s not unusual to have animals fall in the well and die in any place where wells are common. Some chlorine takes care of the problem.
Water quality testing kits are cheap and they work. You can get them online.
From a water-quality perspective, this doesn’t sound like a serious problem to me.