Team News Riveting
Battling between life and death deep inside the Bay of Bengal for 55 days, the eight fishermen drifted away in the waters after setting sail on July 23 finally reached Chennai
One of them is still missing.
The nine fishermen from Chennai had started their voyage for deep-sea fishing on July 23 and were expected to return in 13-15 days. Following inclement weather on day 4, they started travelling in the direction of the wind and lost the course.
The poor fishermen’s appeal to the crossing ships went in vain. “Finally on the 17th day, help arrived from a Sri Lankan boat,” recalled one. The fishermen tried to help them by tying their boat and sail to the coast. However, the boat started to crack up and they left them in the sea.
Stranded in the icy waters, they were consuming very little food to save the rest for future and were hoping that someone would help them. “We started losing hope completely,” says Desapan, another survivor.
As a month passed, the situation was grim and they started praying for a miracle. As the food stock exhausted and the drinking water also got over.
“We caught fish in the waters and somehow cooked them to satiate our hunger,” he recalls, adding they already had no drinking water and were surviving on the rainwater.
At the end of 55 days, the fishermen spotted a boat with foreigners. They had drifted into the waters of Myanmar during the course of their journey without knowing. The fishermen from Myanmar informed their Navy and extended the necessary help.
The hardship did not end; they had to continue for a few more days in their boats as the Myanmar government had some reservations to take them into their country. They cited the increasing coronavirus cases and told the Indian embassy to handle the situation.
“We stayed in the boat for a few more days but they arranged for food. However, they said we need to safeguard our boat because they would not arrange for a flight,” he says. The winds started blowing again and that’s when another tragedy struck.
One of the fishermen went missing as he tried to secure the boat. Desapan says the driver Raghu and Babu went to tie the boat that was on the verge of collapsing due to heavy winds. “Both of them decided to anchor the boat. They reached the place where our boats were kept and they threw the anchor into the water. However, the anchor got stuck on the fan of the boat and immediately Babu jumped into the water to disentangle the anchor and Raghu followed him,” says Desapan.
“As they went deep inside, Raghu was able to hear Babu for a while. However, Babu’s voice became feeble and then he disappeared. The fishermen from Myanmar were also not able to check on him due to the language problem,” he explains.
The search operation for the missing fisherman is still on. However, by then, the Indian government had arranged for flight tickets for the fishermen under the Vande Bharat scheme.
On Thursday, the fishermen reached Chennai in a flight after a wait of more than 20 days.
