THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KOCHI: Coast Guard vessels engaged in search and rescue operations in the Arabian Sea found three more bodies on Sunday. Coast Guard ship Samar recovered a dead body off the coast of Minicoy, the southernmost atoll in the Lakshadweep archipelago. The ship is expected to reach Kerala with the body on Monday morning. While the ship’s destination is yet to be announced, defence sources said it would dock at Vizhinjam, since that port was closer than Kochi.
In the second operation, Coast Guard ship Sankalp fished out an unidentified body that was floating in the sea about 20 nautical miles off Kochi. The body, which was handed over to the Marine Enforcement wing, was brought to Vypeen boat jetty by evening. Another body was recovered 20 nautical miles off Vizhinjam, a Navy officer said.
Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force (IAF) flew three sorties on Sunday in the Indian Ocean region in a bid to locate fishermen still missing in the wake of cyclone Ockhi. However, the sorties failed to locate stranded fishermen or the missing boats. The IAF search was conducted using two Antonov An-32 aircraft and a C-130 J aircraft.
The first An-32 took off from the Shangumugham air station of the IAF with five fishermen from Pozhiyoor on board at 7.15 am. A second An-32 and the C-130 J, which took off later in the day, conducted searches further south. One of the sorties covered the nine-degree channel and the sea further west of it, but failed to discover anything.
Reconnaissance by the Maldivian National Defence Forces (MNDF) in the sea around the island nation also failed to locate any of the fishing boats or men missing from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, a defence spokesperson said.
The recce was carried out on the request of the Government of India on the assumption that the boats may have drifted beyond the exclusive economic zone. The MNDF Coast Guard confirmed that no Indian fishermen were marooned on the islands in the archipelago. Vessels of the MNDF Coast Guard and the Indian Navy’s INS Koswari, a Car Nicobar-class patrol vessel, had operated in the area.
“The MNDF Coast Guard commander has indicated that the MNDF Coast Guard has been searching around the northern atolls of Maldives using surface assets. There are no inputs on any fishermen,’’ a defence spokesperson said.