Kanyakumari fishers rescue 126 stranded in Kerala

MADURAI: In just nine hours after they began rescue operations, fishermen from Eraiviputhenthurai coastal fishing hamlet in Kanyakumari district evacuated 126 residents of Chengannur town in Alappuzha district on Sunday. Their delight was, however, overshadowed by the death of an aged woman, whose body they retrieved and sent to the government hospital for postmortem.



Twenty fishermen of the village led by S Justin started to the flood-hit district on the request of fisheries officials from Kerala. “We were ready to go there but did not know whom to contact. So we informed fisheries officials in Kanyakumari district to let us know if we were needed. Late on Saturday night, we got a call from officials that we should go to Ernakulam as that region was badly affected and inundated,” he said.

Talking to TOI during a short break between rescue operations on Sunday evening, he said that they started from Eraiviputhenthurai at 1 am on Sunday, equipped with three motorised fibre boats, 700 litres of kerosene for the boats, supplies worth ?50,000, for the recued people, 5,000 water bottles and power banks for their mobile phones in four vans.

They had to pay ?12,000 towards transport for each boat. They were around 110km from Thiruvananthapuram and heading to Aluva around 8am on Sunday, when some people from Alappuzha stopped them and said that many were still stranded at Chengannur. There was difficulty in connecting with officials, as there was no cellular network. The team split into three and went in search of victims stranded in their houses in many directions. Each team took one or two locals.