The body of one of the four Kerala fishermen who went missing after their fibre boat had capsized some 10 nautical miles off the Munambam coast was recovered by the Azheekkodu coastal police in Thrissur district on October 7 morning.
The body has been identified as that of Sharath, aka Appu, 25, of Malippuram. The body was spotted by fishermen from Vypeen who had been participating in the search operation. They alerted the Azheekkodu coastal police who then retrieved the body. The Azheekkodu coastal police had earlier registered a case following the accident.
Though the fishermen claimed to have spotted another body as well, the coastal police could not trace it. Shaji, aka Thaha, 52, and Mohanan, 55, of Chappa beach at Malippuram, and Raju, a resident of Alappuzha, are still missing. Three others aboard the fibre boat were rescued more than four hours after the boat capsized on October 5 evening.
The boat, Nanma, had set off from Malippuram reportedly to fetch fish from another boat and capsized about an hour after shifting the fish aboard. Preliminary reports suggested that overloading and poor condition of the boat caused the accident.
The Indian Coast Guard (ICG), marine enforcement squad, coastal police of Fort Kochi and Azheekkodu, Fisheries department and local fishermen in their boats were involved in the search braving adverse weather. The search was launched after the office of the assistant director of Fisheries, Vypeen, alerted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (Kochi) about the incident.
The ICG had deployed its fast-patrol vessel Abhinav patrolling in northern Kerala coast for the search operations. An interceptor boat was also deployed.
According to one of the three survivors, they had held on to a can used for storing water on the boat for more than four hours before being rescued by another boat that passed through the area. He said that water suddenly swept into the boat, sinking it.
