Thekkady boat accident..

tittooraju

A boat with tourists had an accident today..
No details have been announced yet..

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tittooraju

2 tourists from mumbai found dead..

santos_g15

Bad News.How did it happen.May be they will show it on local TV.I have gone to the place.Ws it standard boat or the bamboo rafting program or something similar.Did the elephants attack the boat

pundabee

It is a double-decker tour boat with around 70 tourists, mostly from Bangalore. The boat capsized because animals were spotted on one side of the lake, and all the people ran to that side of the boat. It couldn't deal with the change in the load and quickly turned around.

There are four confirmed deaths at the moment.

Nick-H

I am so horrified and disgusted by this news. Obviously the boats are not subject to the most elementary stability test.

I could curse the responsible boat owners, but what would be the point --- there are enough suffering families now. Can we hope for immediate official action to prevent boats of similar design being used? Sadly, probably not.

So sad for those families...

<Checked>

Well, it was a government tourist-department boat. I don't know if they all are, maybe Pundabee or one of the other Kerala members knows --- but still, I cannot forgive whoever is responsible.

The Hindu, Breaking News. Very little yet. Reports here probably more up to date.



My posts on safety in India are known to some; they have even offended a few, but I still feel completely shocked by this.

Still.. it is a mystery. This boat may have done thousands of journeys without mishap...

Here's another link: NDTV. About the same. I suppose this is one occasion on which I should probably turn on the TV rather than search the web.

ribhu95

Horrible news.....Unfortunately, there is no sustained mechanism to establish accountability or prevent recurrence.

Will stay in news till something else catches attention of people and everybody (including me, us) accept the old ways and move on...

Sad but true

ribhu

Radjesh

Was there myself a month ago, my second visit in a year... For those 70-80 odd tourists, they don't even have sufficient number of life jackets and not to mention those rickety old floating devices disguised as boats. The principal danger in the Periyar river are the trees under the water

KTDC is flush with money from European and Indian tourists, but still the same old story...

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chackmatha

22 dead bodies found. The reason for accident is people moving to one side of the boat to see an herd of elephants .

pundabee

Most of them are. The reason only four bodies having been covered is that it happened just before dark. If the boat capsized very quickly, which is the belief, most people will have been dragged under with very little chance of survival. Fearing the worst.

Sadly, accidents like this happen when you operate without health and safety regulations.

lathish

http://www.asianetindia.com/news/6-d...ady_84338.html
" The passengers were mostly tourists from abroad and north India who were returning after sight seeing.
The passengers of the boat rushing to one side of the vessel to see wild animals, has been quoted as reason for the mishap. As passengers gathered on one side of the boat, the boat might have lost balance, forest officials said."

jayakrishnan4ub

The government rescue operations has proven its worst situation once more in front of all of us. Its 1 hr 45 minutes past the accident and our govt agencies are only able to send some boats on to the scene. A Naval base that is Cochin is only at a Flying time of 30 to 35 minutes from Thekkady. What the hell is the people doing there?? Now the news reports are coming that 40 Naval Sea men has started by road to Thekkady. They will take more than 4 hrs to reach there. Are they going for the rescue operations or for searching for the dead bodies?? A human being who does not know swimming will not be able to sustain in the water till navy reaches there. Are they trying to fool us?? Why cant they transport their men in Helicopters?? An eye witness from from the scene reports that there is only 3 tube lights there. Is this what we expect for the tax that we pay. We have seen rescue operation by a helicopter co pilot in US in medias. Is the same that we are also getting from our govt organizations also? The last stages of this issue that media will be reporting is "GOVERNMENT HAS ORDERED FOR A JUDICIAL INQUIRY IN TO THE MATTER". Is that for we are paying the tax. We should rethink on this and try to get the situation corrected.

jayakrishnan4ub

Death toll reached 24

lathish

@jayakrishnan4ub .Do agree with you
It seems Gov doesn't have any ICR/Incident response team
We IMers need to take this the lapse,serious lapse to medias out there and even the International news agencies.i agree that would project bad image of 'God's Own Country' ,but just think... this did not happen in any river or little known place but in The Thekkady a globally recognized location.if Gov cant least provide some protection to places like this it shame on them.There was similar accident last year in another wild life park.Eighteen schoolchildren and four teachers are feared dead and 15 others missing when a boat carrying 37 students capsized in the Periyar river near Thattekadu Bird Sanctuary I believe JUDICIAL INQUIRY is still undergoing for this
It time we put all people visiting Thekkady or other rivers carry a life jacket with them.

pundabee

10 rescued, which probably means that the rest are gone. It is highly unlikely to find survivors after 2 hours.

Nick-H

Your feelings are understandable, and I too feel anger and grief. The truth is that those who cannot swim will be dead within minutes, so it makes little difference whether they get there in thirty minutes or four hours --- and I'd be one of those non-swimmers.

For those who can at least stay afloat, then yes, time is of the essence.

My wife has just turned on a Malayalee news channel, and it seems 40 people rescued, 26 dead. (Pundabee... are you watching local TV? Obviously some big differences in the reports... I guess we'll know by tomorrow)

I don't know who the TV channel guy was interviewing, but he kept on making the point, "You have been telling us that the same thing since it happened at 5.15, people are coming, but people are not there". They say a helicopter is going there, and a rescue helicopter with floodlights could be saving lives, but it is not there.

And people ask about white-water rafting, skydiving, and the like, sports with obvious danger. People take offence when we say India is not safe, even fairgrounds do not effective safety control. And yet I've been on a boat at Thekkady, without thinking that I was risk.