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Central & South Asia
Deaths feared in India boat sinking
An overcrowded boat sinks while carrying pilgrims from a Hindu festival in India.
Last Modified: 21 Jan 2007 06:59 GMT
The victims were Hindu pilgrims returning from a religious festival [AFP]

More than 60 people returning home from a Hindu festival in southern India were feared drowned after their overcrowded boat capsized and sank while crossing a river.
 
K Srinivas Reddy, a district police chief, said 66 people, including 30 women and children, were missing and feared drowned.
The accident occurred on Thursday on the Krishna river in Mehboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh state, 180km southwest of the state capital, Hyderabad.
 
Divers and helicopters scoured the river for bodies until night fell and rescuers suspended the search operation.

Reddy said there were more than 70 people on the crowded boat when it sank 100 metres from the bank in deep water.

   

"So far we have recovered the bodies of 13 people including a woman and two children," he said. Some of the younger passengers swam to safety, but the elderly and many women and children were among the missing, he said.

   

Authorities said divers found a further nine bodies, including those of two women and four children, late on Friday.

   

A survivor told Reuters by telephone that he swam to safety along with his 12-year-old son but lost his daughter and wife.

   

"I watched helplessly as my wife and daughter drowned a few metres away," the man, who gave his name as Maddisetti, said from a government hospital in Kollapur, a nearby town.

   

He said the boat was so crowded that passengers had to grab hold of each other to prevent people falling overboard.

Source:
Agencies
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