The Indian Coast Guard and a merchant vessel on Tuesday morning rescued 20 Bangladeshi fishermen who had been adrift in the Bay of Bengal since their wooden trawler capsized after Cyclone Sitrang made landfall hours before.
A coast guard Dornier aircraft that was on routine surveillance and sanitisation sortie over the Bay of Bengal, off the coast of Bengal and Odisha, spotted the fishermen trying desperately to stay afloat in the choppy water, around 167km off Sagar island, a senior officer said.
According to the officer, winds clocking above 65kmph and gusting up to 110kmph had turned the Bay of Bengal very rough, with waves rising over 2.5m, while the cyclone was making landfall.
Unable to withstand the strong winds, the wooden trawler of the fishermen capsized. The crew on board the Dornier aircraft realised that the fishermen had no lifeboat as that too had sunk and they were barely clinging to wooden planks from their fishing boat and a few floats.
Coast guard personnel on the aircraft dropped an auto-inflating rubber life raft close to them.
Another senior officer said the Dornier aircraft circled over the fishermen till all of them could climb on the life raft safely and conducted a scan to find the nearest vessels in the area.
“The crew found that MV Nanta Bhum, a container vessel with Thailand’s flag, was close by and immediately contacted the crew over the radio and told them the coordinates of the fishermen. The captain of the merchant vessel set a course to pick up the fishermen based on the location given by the Dornier,” said the officer.
MV Nanta Bhum, which was sailing from Malaysia to Kolkata, picked up the fishermen in a short span of time, the officer said. Three coast guard ships were also directed to the area where the fishermen had been spotted by the Dornier.
They were Indian Coast Guard Ship (ICGS) Vijaya and ICGS Varad (both offshore patrol vessels based in Paradip), and ICGS C-426 (a fast interceptor boat).
“The 20 Bangladeshi fishermen were subsequently taken over by ICGS Vijaya from the merchant vessel. They were examined by the medical officer on board the ship. All the fishermen are in relatively good health but they have undergone exposure and some are in a state of shock,” the officer said.
All 20 fishermen will be handed to the Bangladesh Coast Guard at 10am on Thursday. India and Bangladesh have signed a memorandum of understanding, which requires the coast guards of both countries to work in coordination to rescue fishermen who cross the International Maritime Border Line (IMBL).
In the last several years, the two forces have worked in tandem to rescue fishermen in distress.
With common security interests, the two forces also undertake coordinated patrolling to prevent activities such as smuggling and poaching.
Preventing ecological degradation along the coasts is also a mandate for the two forces.