Cyclone Tauktae: Captain of Tugboat Varaprada Found Dead in Valsad; 6 Bodies Fished Out so Far in Gujarat

Six bodies have so far been recovered from two places here in south Gujarat since Saturday evening, Valsad Superintendent of Police Rajdeepsinh Jhala said.

Ahmedabad: The body of the tugboat (Varaprada) captain identified as Nagendra Kumar has been found on the shore of Gujarat’s Valsad district. Meanwhile, five other bodies have also been fished out in Valsad but their identities are yet to be confirmed. With this, six bodies have so far been recovered from two places here in south Gujarat since Saturday evening, Valsad Superintendent of Police Rajdeepsinh Jhala said.

Of the six bodies recovered so far, four were found on Saturday. The four bodies were washed ashore- three on the Tithal beach and one on a beach in Dungri village here. Speaking to PTI, Valsad Superintendent of Police–Rajdeepsinh Jhala- said the bodies seemed to be of members of the Barge P305 that had sunk off the Mumbai coast after it could not withstand Cyclone Tautkae fury. He said out of the four bodies found on Saturday, one was identified as that of the captain of tugboat ”Varaprada” that sank last Monday.

Two more bodies were found on the shore of Gujarat’s Valsad district on Sunday and they are suspected to be of the missing victims of the barge P305 and a tugboat that sank in the Arabian Sea during Cyclone Tauktae, a police official said. “We are trying to identify the other five bodies,” he said.

Barge P-305, which housed personnel engaged in maintenance work of an offshore oil drilling platform of the state-run oil and gas major ONGC, sank on Monday evening off the Mumbai coast after it went adrift due to the high-speed winds and huge tidal waves caused by the extremely severe cyclone which brushed the Mumbai coast on its way to Gujarat.

Apart from the nine missing personnel of the barge P305, the Navy and the Coast Guard are also searching for 11 missing persons from the tugboat Varaprada. Of the 13 people on Varaprada, two have been rescued, officials earlier said.