Navy, Coast Guard rescue 314 people from 2 barges
Battling extreme weather, the Indian Navy and Coast Guard have so far rescued 314 people on board two barges that went adrift in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai hours before Cyclone Tauktae made landfall on the Gujarat coast, an official said on Tuesday.
Three barges and an oil rig with 707 personnel on board had gone adrift on Monday. These included accommodation barge P305 with 273 persons, cargo barge GAL Constructor with 137 personnel on board, accommodation barge SS-3 with 196 personnel on board and the Sagar Bhushan oil rig with 101 personnel on board, a Navy official said.
While all the 137 people on board the cargo barge GAL Constructor have been rescued, 177 of the 273 onboard P305 have been rescued so far, the official said. “Two Coast Guard Chetak helicopters operating from the Coast Guard Air station in
Daman rescued personnel on board the GAL Constructor. One more Chetak helicopter was also pressed into service for the SAR operations,” he said.
There is no word yet on the progress of rescue operations for the accommodation barge SS-3 and the Sagar Bhushan oil rig.
Images circulated by the Navy showed destroyer INS Kolkata picking up two survivors overnight from the barge P305. The Navy on Tuesday said the barge has sunk. Dramatic TV visuals also showed personnel on board what looked like a sinking rig being rescued. There was no confirmation from Navy officials on the vessel’s identity.
Navy ships were deployed on
Monday after receipt of a request for assistance for barge ‘P305’ adrift off Heera oil fields in Bombay high area with 273 personnel on board. The oil fields are around 70 km southwest of Mumbai. Sixty persons on board the P305 barge were rescued till 11 pm and the remaining till Tuesday afternoon, the official said, adding a Navy helicopter brought three rescuees to INS Shikra this morning. INS Shikra, formerly known as INS Kunjali, is a naval air station located at Colaba in south Mumbai.
State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had on Monday said barge P305 with 261 personnel deployed for offshore drilling got de-anchored and began drifting because of the cyclonic storm Tauktae.
A barge is a long flat-bottomed boat either under its power or towed by another. An accommodation barge is of shallow draft (vessel whose keel is not far below the waterline) and is used to accommodate personnel on projects where shore accommodation is not available.
3 BARGES AND AN OIL RIG WITH 707 PERSONNEL ON BOARD HAD GONE ADRIFT ON MONDAY