NAVY INTENSIFIES SEARCH OPS FOR OVER 20 MISSING BARGE PERSONNEL

The Navy on Saturday deployed specialised diving teams to boost the search and rescue operations for the 21 personnel still missing, six days after a barge and tugboat went adrift amid Cyclone Tauktae off the Mumbai coast.

Fifteen people from the barge P305 and 11 from the tugboat Varaprada are still missing.

“To augment the ongoing SAR ops for the missing crew of Barge P305 and Tug Varaprada, specialised diving teams onboard INS Makar with sidescan sonar and INS Tarasa sailed out early morning today from Mumbai,” an official tweeted.

The death toll on barge P305 that sank in the Arabian Sea on Monday reached 60 on Friday with the recovery of 11 more bodies even as the Navy continued the search for the missing personnel. MUMBAI: