The Westerly disturbance triggered by a low pressure area over the Arabian Sea has caused more damage on the sea than on land in coastal Karnataka. One barge and two fishing vessels drowned, while one vessel that was aimlessly drifting, was recovered on Wednesday .
A barge, MRH Koyna, belonging to Salgaocar’s mining company of Goa, was washed ashore after it encountered foul weather near Harawada, close to Karwar. The barge was carrying manganese ore to the New Mangalore Port, and had eight crew members onboard. All of them are reported to be safe.
In another incident reported from Byndoor police station limits, two fishing vessels, Al Khatija and Sadiya Parveen, had been washed ashore on a distant island, Netrani, about 20 nautical miles from Bhatkal. Each boat had three crew members and all of them have been rescued.
These vessels had ignored the storm alert issued by the Shiroor fishing port on October 9 and had gone on a fishing expedition from Shiroor in Byndoor police station limits.
The Coastal Security Police (CSP) recovered the third fishing boat on Wednesday.
The UPA Fisheries had been lost in the sea from November 10, and had been aimlessly drifting towards the northern waters, when the CSP search party recovered it from Gangolli, 185km from Ullal, and brought the crew to Gangolli port.
A crew member Selvan Raju said the boat had reported a faulty engine at about 25 nautical miles. A crew member had hopped into a fishing boat that was returning to Ullal to bring help, but the boat had started drifting dragging its anchor. Luckily, the VHF radio set had worked with onboard battery through which an SOS was sent out. The CSP intercepted the SOS and rescued the ship.
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