There is a folktale in Western India that once an unknown disease gripped India and in rural areas, the causalities were so severe that there weren’t enough people alive to bury or burn the dead. Well, the story is true. The pandemic was worldwide and is infamously known as third plague pandemic. The bubonic plague began in Yunnan province of China in 1855. The plague came to India in 1894. The outbreak was sudden and had an incubation period of 4.5 to 6 days and on the onset of symptoms those infected had high fever often accompanied by delirium. Soon they had swollen glands and death occurred at the end of 48 hours from the onset of symptoms. The epidemic was initially reported in port cities of Mumbai, Karachi, Pune and Kolkata. By 1899, the disease had spread to other parts of India and rural communities. In Kolkata, 34,000 deaths were reported in a single week. English government took drastic steps to eradicate the disease by burning whole sections of towns and segregating the inhabitants from the infected patients. About 90% of those infected were dead. As the plague spread to famine-stricken districts, things went from bad to worse. By 1900, Chennai came under the purview of plague and by early 20th century, most of the world was infected. Over the next 30 years, over 1.2 crore deaths were officially reported in India.