Guwahati: A woman died and several other people lost after their private rustic boat they left Majuli Island to Nimatighat in Jorhat District Assam sank in Brahmaputra after being hit by a larger ferry coming from the opposite direction on Wednesday.
The incident occurred around 4.15pm.
The country’s boat named “Ma Kamala” and the ferry are “tripkai”.
The boat carried out by the government and the private sector is the lifeline of the island population.
The boat managed personally did not issue tickets and therefore they did not count passengers.
Authorities said according to various sources, at least 70 people were on board, and the number of those lost could be around 27.
Women who had died, Parimita Das, from Guwahati, recently began working as a school teacher in Majuli.
Assam CM Himanta Buswa Sarma said 43 people had been saved so far.
“One of them, a woman, died after she was taken to Jorhat Medical College and Hospital”.
At least seven among the passengers saved are children, the youngest baby for three months.
PM Narendra Modi Tweeted, “Sadly with a boat accident in Assam.
All efforts may be made to save the passengers.
I pray for everyone’s safety and welfare”.
Search operation by NDRF, SDRF and local youth lights up when the last report comes.
Divers have found a concave boat about 200 meters downstream from a collision site.
Sarma said, “So far, the missing report of four people has been accepted through our credit free numbers, but we will need several hours to ensure the number of missing people”.
Sarma said because of a strong current, divers could not search in ships for people trapped.
“We will now cut the boat to carry out a search operation under a reverse ship,” he said.
Dozens of rural boats carry hundreds of people to and from the island to the land of Jorhat every day in the absence of a bridge.
The bridge foundation stone was placed by Minister of Union Nitin Gadkari in 2016, before the assembly poll, and construction work for the two-lane bridge, 6.8-km was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in February 2021, before assembly of polls.
The Government Assam has suspended the executive engineer of the Department of Land Transportation Air from the Division of Dibrugarh, and an Executive Engineer Assistant and Junior Engineering from the Jorhat Sub-Division, for the negligence of the task, and has ordered a magisterial investigation into a ship accident.
Watch Assam: Ship brings 100 passengers upside down on the Brahmaputra River after a collision