Thirty-seven dead personnel on board barge P305 that went adrift in Cyclone Tauktae fury and sank could have been saved had life rafts not had punctures and the Captain taken the cyclone warnings seriously.
The revelation was made by the barge’s chief engineer Rahman Shaikh, who is among the 188 men rescued from the vessel. “There was miscalculation on the Captain’s behalf and also the company,” he was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
“We received the cyclone warning a week before it hit. Many other vessels in the vicinity left. I told the Captain, Balwinder Singh, that we must also leave for the harbour. But he told me that winds were not expected to be over 40 kmph and the cyclone would cross Mumbai in one or two hours. But in reality the wind speed was more than 100 kmph. Five of our anchors broke. They couldn’t withstand the cyclone,” Shaikh, 48, said.
While the chief engineer was among the lucky ones who was saved and admitted to Apollo Hospital in Tardeo with a wound on his knee, the Captain is still missing. The technical superintendent of the company, Rajendra Pratap, told him that they were still looking for Singh.
The barge, which served as accommodation for the men working on ONGC platforms and rigs, was engineless, like most vessels in that category. Barges usually need to be towed by a tug boat. Shaikh said that he sent an SOS to Nove, the designated tugboat for P305, but its master did not show up, the IE report stated.
He said they could spot Naval ships in the vicinity but before any of those could reach P305, the barge drifted and hit an unmanned oil rig. “We had a big hole. Water started coming in. We tried using life rafts on the port (left) side but only two could be launched and the rest 14 were punctured. Since the winds were blowing at high speed and the waves were high and rough, no one had the courage to check on the starboard side where there were 16 more life rafts,” Shaikh was quoted as saying.
The men, who had worn their life jackets, were asked to jump into the sea in groups holding floating rings, so that they would be visible to rescuers and could be picked up, he added. “The barge finally sank at 5 pm on Monday,” the report further said.
Shaikh said most of the men died from being too long in the water, and due to panic and shock. “I saw death coming but was saved by the grace of Allah,” he was quoted as saying.
Chances of finding more survivors are looking bleak, a Navy official said. Mumbai police have announced they will conduct a probe as to why the ill-fated barge remained in the turbulent area despite warnings about cyclone Tauktae, an official said. They registered an accidental death report (ADR) on Wednesday in connection with the death of the personnel on the barge.
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