CHENNAI: Locating a vessel or fisherman reported missing at sea would no longer be a daunting task, thanks to the latest technology.
The National Maritime Search and Rescue Board on Monday has approved the newly developed Search and Rescue Aided Tool (SARAT) mobile App, which is a highly versatile tool of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad.
The App can assist in searching for over 64 types of missing ‘objects’ including boats, ships, man-over-board etc. and will be available for download from the Google Play Store. Importantly, it comes in all the nine regional languages of the coastal States of India, including Tamil Nadu.
“For instance, if a fishermen boat drifts 100 miles into the sea and is reported missing, the fellow fishermen who choose to venture on a search and rescue mission can just open the SARAT App and select a specific point where the person or object was last seen using the App’s interactive map or they can select a nearby coastal location, approximate distance travelled and bearing angle so that the ‘last seen’ point is calculated. The most probable search area is then generated and relayed in map form as well as a text message.
The rescuer can share his GPS location in the App to calculate his closest route to easily reach the search area. This App is expected to be compatible with over 90% of Android-based handsets”, said TM Balakrishnan Nair, head, Ocean Science and Information Services Group, INCOIS.
Balakrishnan and Rajendra Singh, chairman of National Maritime Search and Rescue Board and Director-General of the Indian Coast Guard, has approved the App on Monday. He said SARAT system mainly enables the Indian Coast Guard, Navy and Coastal Security Police to minimise search-time, loss of life, injury and property damage.
However, in such exigencies, quick action is vital, and hence this mobile App has been developed to make this system conveniently available to all. The accuracy of SARAT is validated using networks of drifting buoys and other instruments. The system can predict the most probable search area for up to 5 days.