KAKINADA: A fibre boat with 10 fishermen capsized when it hit floating timber and overturned in Bay of Bengal between Chirra Yanam-Neelapalli of Uppalaguptam and Katrenikona mandals of Konaseema district on Thursday.
The boat belonged to Pinapothu Srinivasa Rao. It ventured into the sea during early hours of Thursday from Kakinada Fishing Harbour.
Fisheries development officer Chodey Rambabu said as the fishermen went deeper into the sea, their boat hit hard timber floating astray. As a result, the boat broke and overturned. All the fishermen fell into the sea but stayed afloat on floating fibre pieces of their boat. They informed the boat owner who got in touch with fisheries department, coast guard and marine police.
In the interim, a boat belonging to Bhairavapalem village noticed the fishermen and took them on board. Marine police sought help from officials of Ravva Port in S. Yanam run by Cairn Energy. Ravva personnel reached the overloaded boat and supplied the fishermen drinking water till another rescue boat arrived, fisheries deputy director P.V. Satyanarayana told Deccan Chronicle.
The boat owner said all essential commodities, gas cylinders, five tonnes of engine oil, ₹5 lakh worth of nets and the boat have got sunk, causing a total loss of ₹80 lakh.
