Ahmedabad, July 10 - The death toll in one of Gujarat's worst moonshine tragedies rose to 105 even as doctors in four hospitals were trying desperately to save scores of other critically ill patients, officials said Friday.

People began dying Monday after having consumed illicit liquor. By midnight Thursday, 105 lives had been lost.

Authorities said 149 patients admitted to the Civil Hospital, L.G. Hospital, Shardaben Hospital and V.S. Hospital were still critically ill.

'The ICU (intensive care unit) is full of these patients and there are about 60 outside in various wards,' said an intern at the Civil Hospital.

He said that the slow poison effect of the brew on the nervous system is claiming lives though many of the patients have been on life support for over three days.

'The last time the state witnessed a liquor tragedy of this scale was in 1989, when 132 people were killed in a matter of days,' he added.

Embarrassed by the scale of the tragedy in a state where consumption and sale of liquor is officially banned, police have swept through Gujarat in search of those illegally selling home-made liquor.