Three barges sink off Jakhau coast in Gujarat, 22 people rescued

“The barges were loaded with salt and were waiting for clearance to start unloading their cargo on MV Ikan Landuk which is anchored some 9.5 nautical miles off Jakhau port. However, the sea turned rough all of a sudden on Tuesday night and the barges sank within hours. There were five-metre high waves. Strong currents damaged anchor of MV Noor-1 and the vessel sank after drifting some four nautical miles off its original anchoring position,” P Narsimha Rao, JSPCL officer in-charge of operations at Jakhau told The Indian Express.

Personnel from Coast Guard stations in Okha and Jakhau responded to emergency calls of the sinking barges and rescued 15 crew members by launching hovercraf.

“As per primary reports, the Coast Guard rescued 15 crew members while seven others were rescued by a team of Sanghi Cement (a cement company having a plant nearby),” Prabhakaran Nambiar, manager of Human Resource department of JSCPL and spokesperson for the company said.

Nambiar said Coast Guard, local marine police and others were searching for a missing crew member.

“The fourth barge remains stranded as of now. But our priority is to rescue the missing person,” Nambiar added.

Local Coast Guard officers said search was on to find out the missing person.

JSCPL is group company of Chennai-based Archean Group. The company claims to be the largest exporter of industrial-grade salt of India. It exports salt to South East, Middle East and East Asian countries. Company officials said that the deadweight tonnage of MV Sea Pearl and MV Saumya was 2139 metric tonne (MT) and 2000 MT respectively. MV Noor-1 and BDS SP-1 had deadweight tonnage of 2317 MT and 1500 MT respectively, they further said.

The JSCPL officials added that MV Ikan Landuk, a cargo vessel bearing flag of Marshal Islands, was waiting for clearance to start loading salt. The vessel was scheduled to depart for Japan with the cargo on Wednesday night.