Search on for missing after cyclone sinks barge in west India
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A photo from the Indian Navy showing its personnel helping an injured worker rescued from an offshore barge which had gone adrift amid heavy rain and strong winds caused by Cyclone Tauktae. The storm smashed into the Bombay High oilfield near Mumbai, where India's biggest offshore oil rigs are located, and sank the P305 barge, with 261 people on board.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
NEW DELHI • Fourteen people died after a barge sank off India's west coast following a cyclone, officials said yesterday, while Indian navy ships and aircraft scoured waters to locate scores of other missing personnel.
"We can confirm that 14 bodies have been recovered from the rescue operation of barge P305 that sank off the coast of Mumbai," said Western Naval Command's public relations officer Mehul Karnik.
Indian navy ships and aircraft have been scouring the waters off the country's financial capital since Monday when the barge and some other vessels went adrift due to the cyclone.
Driving waves of more than 7m on the high seas, Cyclone Tauktae rammed into the western states of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, and Gujarat, killing at least 61 people and leaving a trail of destruction, the authorities said.
The storm smashed into the Bombay High oilfield near Mumbai, where India's biggest offshore oil rigs are located, and sank the P305 barge, with 261 people on board.
The navy said over 180 people had been rescued from the barge, which was engaged in contract work awarded by Oil and Natural Gas Corp, India's top exploration company. Three ships and aircraft are continuing to look for the remaining personnel, it added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to conduct an aerial survey of the storm-hit areas in his home state Gujarat, the state government said.
Cyclone Tauktae made landfall in Gujarat late on Monday packing gusts of up to 210kmh.
It has piled more pressure on the Indian authorities who are already grappling with a massive spike in coronavirus infections and deaths as well as a shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.
In Gujarat, among the states hit hardest by the second wave of Covid-19, the cyclone has ripped out power pylons, damaged some 16,500 homes and blocked over 600 roads, the authorities said.
"Mobile phone networks are still down in many areas, and I don't think they will be restored by today," Mr Aayush Oak, the top official in Gujarat's Amreli district, said yesterday.
REUTERS