Nine drown, three missing after rescue boat overturns in Maharashtra's Sangli

Abhijeet Patil | TNN | Updated: Aug 8, 2019, 17:54 IST

NDRF personnel engage in rescue operations in flood-hit Sangli (ANI)

KOLHAPUR: Nine people, including four women, died of drowning when a boat carrying 30 persons capsized in the flood waters at Bramhanaal village in Palus taluka of Sangli district around 11.30am on Thursday. The villagers were being moved to a safer place from a submerged area when the mishap occurred.
"So far, nine bodies have been recovered from the flood waters while an effort is on to trace another three missing persons," Pune's divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar told TOI. "The remaining people on the boat were saved and have been removed to a nearby school," he added.
Sangli district has been badly affected by floods caused by the overflowing waters of Krishna river which has left several villages in the district inundated over the last two days. Brahmanaal village is among one of these affected places. So far, over 60,000 people have been moved to safer places from the flood affected areas of Sangli district.
Officials from the district administration said, the cause of the mishap is being ascertained although, local villagers have said that the boat may have capsized due to the strong current of the river waters.
Anupam Srivastav, commandant of 5th battalion of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) at Talegaon near Pune, told TOI, "The boat did not belong to the NDRF. We learn that the locals were operating the boat for rescuing people. During such relief and rescue operation, the rescuers need to follow scientific methods carefully."

"What we have learnt from our personnel operating in the flood-affected Sangli area is that the boat was of a conical shape which usually is not effective in high current waters. Moreover, no life jackets were provided to the people on the boat as is the standard operating procedure during such rescue effort." Srivastav said.
Teams of NDRF, Army and Navy are aiding the massive rescue and relief work that is going on in the flood-hit areas of Sangli and Kolhapur districts in Western Maharashtra for the last two days.