The government has suspended the steersman and an assistant crew member of the vessel which capsized in the lake here on Wednesday after cruising five kilometres.
The toll in the Thekkady tourist boat tragedy mounted to 44 today with rescuers recovering the bodies of a woman and two children.
Search was still on in the lake here for the fourth day as one more person who had boarded the boat was still missing, officials said.
The government has suspended the steersman Victor and an assistant crew member of the vessel which capsized in the lake here on Wednesday after cruising five kilometres.
The rescuers first fished out the body of five-year-old Aishwarya of Chennai in the small hours and that of her mother Senthil Kumari (36) later. The body of Aishwarya's father, Rajasekharan was recovered on Thursday.
The body of another girl, Apurva (14) from Hyderabad, was also pulled out from the lake and rescuers were now scouring for the body of her brother, district collector Ashok Kumar Singh told PTI.
A preliminary probe into Kerala's worst-ever boat tragedy in the Thekkady Lake located in the Periyar Wildlife Reserve had said that the sudden swerving of the vessel by the steersman was a possible reason for the mishap.
The Chief Inspector Boats had said in his note that other factors such as change in the speed of the double-decker boat or strong winds could have caused the vessel to turn.
He had ruled out chances of the boat having any mechanical problem as it was launched only recently by the Kerala State Tourism Development Corporation.
Meanwhile, Kerala Tourism Development Corporation chairman Cherian Philip said boat services would be resumed at Thekkady only after holding a high level meeting with Forest, Water Resources and Tourism officials.
"More assistance from tourism police and life guards has been sought in Tourist Boating Centres in the state," Philip told PTI.
As part of measures to ensure tourists' safety, only a limited number of passengers would be allowed to board a boat, and life jackets would be made mandatory.
Steps would be taken to provide instructions on 'safety' to all passengers in tourist boats, he said, adding, strict measures would be initiated to ensure safety of tourists in boating centres-Thekkady, Malampuzha, Kochi, Kumarakom and Veli-in the state.
All boats now available with the corporation would be examined by maritime experts, though all boats have fitness certificates, he said. Similarly, boat drivers would again be subjected to driving tests to ensure whether they had the expertise in steering double-decker fibre and speedboats, Philip said.
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