41 sailors rescued from Arabian Sea

Forty-one sailors caught in cyclone-like conditions in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Gujarat were rescued by the Coast Guard on Thursday.

According to a senior Coast Guard officer, two Indian dhows Safina Hussani and Khwaja-Al-Kareem sent out distress signals on Thursday. The two vessels were in transit from Sharjah in the UAE to Okha, India, and were caught in the rough waters amid near-zero visibility.

“We launched an ALH Dhruv and CGS Sangram to carry out search operations and found Safina Hussein half-sunk 27 miles off the coast of Okha at 1600 hours. We rescued all 11 crew members on board,” said M Baadkar, Coast Guard chief of staff (Operations-West).

After rescuing Safina Hussein, Sangram moved in to rescue Al Kareem, which had reportedly sunk by then.

“While moving in to search for Al Kareem, we found that an Indian merchant vessel Gayathri, with 21 sailors on board, was returning from Yemen and stuck in the cyclone. We escorted the ship safely to the Porbandar port,” Baadkar said.

On Friday, the Coast Guard helicopters located Al-Kareem and Sangram rescued its nine crew members.