Cyclone Tauktae: Navy ships rescue 146 people from barge adrift off Mumbai

The Indian Navy has rescued 146 people on board a barge that went adrift in the Arabia Sea near Mumbai hours before Cyclone Tauktae made landfall on the Gujarat coast an official said on TuesdayThe Navy on Tuesday morning also deployed the P8I longrange multimission maritime patrol aircraft to join the search and rescue operations the official saidThe Search and Rescue SAR operations continued throughout the night and a total of 146 persons from Barge P305 have been rescued till 6 am on Tuesday 111 by INS Kochi and INS Kolkata 17 by Offshore Support Vessel OSV Greatship Ahilya and 18 by OSV Ocean Energy whilst operating in extremely challenging sea conditions the official saidThe barge Gal Constructor with 137 persons on board has run aground about 48 nautical miles north of Colaba Point An Emergency Towing Vessel Water Lily two support vessels and CGS Samrat are in the vicinity for rendering assistance and evacuation of crew a Navy spokesperson saidCycloneTauktaeUpdateSearch amp Rescue Ops146 personnel rescued so far from barge P305 which is sunk on siteAerial search commenced at first light with IndianNavy P8I on task Navy Helos standing by await improving of extreme weather conditionsDefenceMinIndiamdash SpokespersonNavy indiannavy May 18 2021INS Talwar is proceeding to assist another oil rig Sagar Bhushan with 101 personnel on board and an accommodation barge SS3 with 196 personnel on board both of which are adrift and presently located about 50 NM South East of Pipavav Port the spokesperson said in a statementThese ongoing rescue efforts have been augmented today morning by an Indian Naval P8I surveillance aircraft Navy helicopters will also be deployed for SAR based on weather conditionsAlso Read Cyclone Tauktae Dahisar jumbo centre damagedThe SAR efforts will continue through the day with more naval assets ready to augment the ongoing operations he saidThe Navy had on Monday deployed three frontline warships after receiving messages to rescue 410 people on board two barges off the Mumbai coastThe ships deployed to extend assistance to the two barges were INS Kolkata INS Kochi and INS TalwarOn receipt of a request for assistance for barge P305 adrift off Heera oil fields in Bombay high area with 273 personnel onboard INS Kochi was swiftly sailed on Monday with a despatch for search and rescue assistance the Navy officer saidThe oil fields are around 70 km southwest of MumbaiThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever