In one of the most heart-wrenching moments, the rescuers at the site of the Jabalpur boat tragedy recovered the bodies of a mother and her four-year-old son locked in a final embrace on Friday, India Today reported.
The rescuers pulled the bodies of the woman and her child out of the water. A life jacket had covered them.
Witnessing this, the family members on the spot broke down. State Cabinet Minister Rakesh Singh, who was also present at the site, also appeared emotionally disturbed.
A river cruise boat, with 29 passengers on board, overturned in the Bargi dam reservoir after it encountered a sudden storm on Thursday. In the tragic incident, nine people lost their lives, and many are still missing.
The rescue efforts are underway, and teams from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), along with administration officials and local police, are deployed at the spot.
As per the officials, the reservoir was lashed by strong winds around 6 pm on Thursday, because of which the waters turned choppy.
According to the eyewitnesses, the passengers on the boat raised alarms and asked the crew to go back to the shore; however, they did not heed to their cries and the boat drifted before capsizing.
Some locals made efforts to rescue some passengers with the help of ropes, especially those who had life jackets on them. However, the rest of them drowned.
After the tragedy, a survivor alleged that there was a lack of basic safety measures and said that not all the passengers were given their life jackets.
Speaking to the media, Minister Singh said, “the situation will be clear in some time" and “after the rescue operation concludes, it will be clear why people could not be saved even when they were wearing life jackets".
Source: News18