Thiruvananthapuram: The skies cleared on Sunday and the winds subsided as the Ockhi cyclone appeared to weaken on the Kerala coast.
But as many families were left to mourn lost members, about a hundred others continued to await news about their missing kin.
Numerous others were left homeless in the wake of the cyclonic storm that ravaged the state coast and some interior districts.
Amid the gloomy setting, there were also nuggets of good news that some of the missing fishermen from the southern districts of Kerala were reported to have reached the shores at Alappuzha and Kochi.
On Saturday, reports came from Mumbai that dozens of fishermen who had gone out fishing on boats from the Kerala coast had reached the coast in Maharashtra. About 100 more fishermen from Kerala are yet to be traced.
Even as the Indian Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the National Disaster Response Force continued search operations, there were protests in different parts of the state against allegedly poor rescue operations on the part of government authorities.
At Valiyathura in Thiruvananthapuram and in Alappuzha, local residents resorted to protests, demanding that the government launch emergency measures to locate the missing fishermen.
Unable to bear the wait for their family members to return from the sea, several fishermen ventured out into the sea to take up search operations themselves, disregarding warnings from the authorities.
At Thumboly in Alappuzha and at Valiyathura in Thiruvananthapuram, protesters blocked traffic.
Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala alleged that there had been a failure on the part of the government in the rescue operations, and that it had reached such a stage that the fishermen themselves had to set out in search of their kith and kin lost on the high seas.
Fishermen have set out in some 40 boats from Poonthura and some 15 boats from Vizhinjam in search of their dear ones. They have stocked enough food and water in the boats to enable a search far out into the sea. Some of the boats also have wireless communication facilities.
