Missing fishing boat found after 40 days with 6 bodies

IANS

Mumbai: A boat, missing for nearly 40 days since the November 12 Cyclone Phyan, was found on Sunday with six bodies of fishermen near Ratnagiri, around 250 km south of Mumbai, the police said.

The police inspector, Ms Suvarna Patki, Ratnagiri coastal security in-charge who is
investigating the case, said that the boat was sighted last on Friday, around 25
nautical miles in the Arabian Sea.

The boat - identified as 'Jeevan I' - had been dragged up to 17 nautical miles on Saturday evening after which some local fishing boats managed to tow it to Ratnagiri shore early Sunday.

When the police and coastal security personnel went on board, they found six
bodies of missing fishermen in a highly decomposed state.

"Even the boat has sustained heavy damages as it must have been tossed around in the cyclone last month," said Ms Patki.

She said that preliminary investigations indicated the boat Jeevan I was registered in Goa and police are contacting their counterparts in the neighbouring states for more details.

The vessel had gone to the high seas November 7 last and was among the several fishing boats reported missing when cyclone battered the Goa and Maharasthra coast for two days.

In its two-day fury over the state's coastal districts of Thane, Mumbai, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, the cyclone claimed 20 lives and destroyed thousands of homes and agriculture crops across hundreds of hectares. The damages in Maharashtra alone have been estimated at over Rs 2 billion.