A pall of gloom descended on Madukkur village near Pattukkottai in Thanjavur district after a marine engineer A Avinash (24), who was part of the fuel ship crew on Kerch Strait near Russia which caught fire, has gone missing. His mother Allirani and other family members have been waiting for news of his rescue.

A Avinash

Chennai:

Avinash is a crew member of one of the Tanzanian-flagged tankers which caught fire on Monday while LPG was being pumped from one tank to another on the Black sea near the Crimean Peninsula in Russia. The two ships had 31 crew members, of which, 14 were feared dead.

While six Indian sailors were found dead, six others were declared missing. One of the missing crew member was identified as A Avinash. Avinash, a BTech Marine Engineering graduate, joined the Nimbus Maritime Services Private Limited as a trainee and later joined the Tanzanian ship at Istanbul, a month ago. This was his maiden voyage.

His father, M Anand Sekar, a CRPF personnel posted at Tata Nagar, Jharkhand, rushed home after hearing his son’s news.

When Avinash’s family contacted officials of the company for which he worked, they were told that four people were still missing and that Avinash was among them. 

The family is said to have asked the company to deploy more helicopters for rescuing the missing crew. Avinash’s younger brother Akash is pursuing his engineering degree.