KUMARAKOM, 28 July — Around 29 people drowned and 70 injured when a boat packed beyond its 100-passenger capacity sank in a lake in the southern state of Kerala, officials said yesterday.
A police official, S. Gopinath, said the tragedy happened “due to overcrowding and the dilapidated condition of the vessel.”
“The boat was carrying passengers three times its actual capacity,” he said, as officials speculated the ferry was carrying as many as 250 to 300 people. So far 29 bodies have been recovered, a rescue official said.
Kerala police chief K. J. Joseph said rescuers had called off the search for more survivors. State Transport Minister K. B. Ganesh Kumar said the ferry involved in the accident belonged to the state-run Kerala Water Transport Department.
The minister also said the state government would soon order a full-fledged judicial investigation into the sinking, the worst recorded waterways disaster in the region. Some 64 survivors were admitted to various hospitals, the police chief said, adding that all the victims have been identified.
Those killed included 15 women and a six-month-old infant, he said. The accident occurred in Vembanad lake at about 5:30 a.m. when the boat was on its way from Muhamma to the popular tourist resort of Kumarakom, in Kerala’s Kottayam district.
It sank after about 35 minutes into the journey, officials said.
“The boat tilted to a side suddenly and passengers panicked, running around,” one survivor said.
“The passengers rushing around resulted in the driver of the boat losing control and it turned turtle within five minutes,” the survivor said, adding that the ferry was in the middle of the lake when it sank.
“Some of the passengers who jumped into the lake were rescued by fishermen returning from their morning catch,” another passenger said.
A large number of survivors were also rescued by a dredger, which was exploring for live shells in the deep lake.
The boat’s morning run to Kumarakom, where Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spent a holiday two years ago, carries mainly fishermen headed for the market there.
But yesterday, it was carrying more people than usual, mostly youth on their way to a government recruitment exam, the official said.
According to P. Shankar, a state minister, said a number of those pulled out from the water were admitted in local hospitals in critical condition.
The state government has announced payments of 50,000 rupees to the next of kin of those dead in the boat tragedy.
Initial rescue operations were spearheaded by villagers, with fishermen pulling out most of the bodies and ferrying them ashore in their fishing boats.
Navy divers who rushed to the site also helped to speed up the recovery of bodies, a rescue official said.
The divers used dredges to lift the sunken boat and brought it to the banks of the lake for forensic examinations, the state police chief said.
Naval helicopters were also deployed.
AN official, Chandrasekharan Nair, said the administration had set up a crisis management cell to coordinate rescue work at the site.
According to local, Saturday’s boat accident was the worst in Kerala’s recent history.
