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38 drown as Kerala tourist boat capsizes
VR Jayaraj | Idukki
Leisure holiday ends in grim tragedy at Thekkady lake
At least 38 tourists died and eight were feared missing after a boat carrying 76 persons on board capsized in Thekkady lake in Idukki district of Kerala, known as one of the hottest tourist destinations in South India, late on Wednesday evening.
The dead included two foreign travellers while most of the victims belonged to North India, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Most of the victims were women and children. According to late night reports, at least ten victims were from Delhi, four from Kolkata, three from Andhra Pradesh, two from Bangalore and one each belonged to Punjab and Singapore.
That the accident took place at a dangerous, deep spot in the lake deep in the jungle, some four km away from the boat landing centre at Thekkady and that it had occurred late in the evening made rescue operations difficult. Rescue workers had been able to save 30 persons who were brought to the boat landing centre by about 7.30 pm. Authorities feared that the toll could still go up as several of those brought to the hospitals alive were in serious condition.
The two-deck fibre boat Jalakanyaka of the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation, commissioned on August 17, had overturned in the lake when all the passengers gathered on one side to see a herd of elephants on the bank of the lake. Many of the passengers saved themselves by jumping off the upper deck when the boat capsized. The accident occurred when the boat, which left the landing centre by 4.30 pm, was returning from the trip.
However, PT Thomas, Idukki MP, told the media that an eyewitness told him the passengers had not gathered on one side. Reports also said the boat capsized after it sharply swerved onto the right suddenly while it was cruising steadily on the calm lake.
The Government opened control rooms in Kumily and Thiruvananthapuram, allocating toll free phone numbers for the concerned to seek information on the accident. The Union Minister of State for Railways informed that arrangements for the journey had been made for the relatives of the victims to Idukki.
Among the victims identified were Saleeha, Pradip Kumar, Sandhya Jain, Alka, Harinder Singh, Talika, Anil, Altaf, Amit Gopi and Partha Sarathi from Delhi, Anupama Bhandari, Deepak Kumar Datta, Dasmina and Kalpana Dutt from Kolkata, Parth Sharma, Devendra Sharma and Sai Manas from Andhra Pradesh, Surya Prakash and Rajshekhara Ramaswami from Bangalore and Vijaya Shailesh from Singapore, according to KTDC sources.
The accident occurred at a spot in the jungle called Manakkavala, which was only some distance away from the confluence of rivers Mullaiyar and Periyar. Local residents said possibilities of undercurrent were strong due to the confluence and also because the spot was near the vent through which Tamil Nadu was drawing water from the Mullaperiyar reservoir.
The Indian Navy joined the search and rescue operations on late Wednesday night, by which time the other operations were facing difficulty due to thick darkness at the spot of the accident and lack of facilities for communication. However, rescue operations were continuing even late in the night, based at a mid-way camp of the Kerala Forest Department near Manakkavala.
The Kerala Government ordered a high-level inquiry into the accident. Local residents said that Thekkady had never had facilities to launch rescue operations in emergencies. There were also doubts whether the boat, despite the fact that it was new, had the mandatory safety measures. Also, the office of the KTDC had never had a system of keeping records of identity of the visitors undertaking the boat ride in the lake.
For any boat ride on the Periyar lake, there was a standing instruction that the passengers should not get up from their seats while on the ride. This instruction could not have been communicated to all the passengers as they spoke different languages. That the lake at the spot was 60 to 100 feet deep also heightened the gravity of the situation.
One woman, Pankaj, from Mumbai, a survivor who along with her husband saved three lives, noted that there were no life-guards, life jackets or any other safety measures on the boat. When she had brought this to the notice of the KTDC caretaker on the boat, he replied that there had been no accident in the past two decades in Thekkady, she said.
Kerala Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac, who was the first Minister to reach the spot, said the Kerala Government would bear all the expenses for reaching the bodies of the dead to their places. He also said the Government was considering providing financial assistance to the relatives of the victims.
For inquiries
Control room
Toll-free: 1070
Thekkady
04869-222 620
04869-222 111
094460 52361
Thiruvananthapuram
0471-233 3198
0471-233 1539
0471-233 1403
Kerala House, Delhi
011-23342320,
011-30411500
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