Guwahati: The toll from Monday's Assam ferry tragedy, possibly India's worst such accident, is estimated to be around 270, with search and rescue parties failing to recover a single missing person yesterday, an official said.
Only 80 people were rescued in operations following the incident in Dhubri district on Monday evening, and most of the other estimated 350 passengers remained missing yesterday evening, the official said.
"Some bodies were fished out late on Monday night by rescuers but it is difficult to estimate the toll as some relatives of the deceased have taken the bodies home for burial," said a district administration official, adding that only 17 bodies were sent for post-mortem.
"It's almost 24 hours after the tragedy now and there is hardly any chance that anyone is alive. Some of the survivors also told us that most of the passengers of the ferry were women and children," said the official.
Another official said: "We are yet to ascertain the exact number of passengers on the ferry. As per our information, about 240 passengers bought tickets but there were passengers without tickets too."
Strong undercurrent
Abdul Aziz, a survivor, said there were more than 300 passengers on the ferry.
A Border Security Force (BSF) official, overseeing the rescue operations, said it was possible some bodies may have floated downstream.
"We have been continuing with the rescue operation since last evening. However, there is a strong undercurrent in the river and the bodies might have been washed away," said S. Kumar.
"We are going to continue the rescue and search operation till evening and then we would have to call it off," he said.
A BSF deputy commandant, Rajesh Bhandoria, told IANS the search was so far unsuccessful.
"Until 5pm [yesterday], we were not able to find even a single body," he said.
All border outposts along the Brahmaputra River have been alerted to look for survivors and search for dead bodies.
Apart from this, BSF has also established contact with the Border Guard Bangladesh at Dhaka and also with its sector commander at Rangpur and battalion commander at Kurigram.
As well as 20 deep-water divers at the BSF, the district administration also used helicopters for the search and rescue operation yesterday morning.
Two senior cabinet ministers, Chandan Brahma and Nazrul Islam, rushed to the Fakirganj area yesterday morning to take stock of the situation.
"We have already ordered an inquiry into the whole incident to find out as to what is the exact cause of the tragedy — whether it is the overloading of passengers or the weather," said Brahma.
He also assured local people of improving the communication infrastructure to Fakirganj.
"We have already arranged for technically sophisticated motor launches to ply between Dhubri and Fakirganj and the new motor launches will arrive by next week," he said adding that the government had already sanctioned a bridge over the Brahmaputra river to connect Jaleswar and Dhubri.
"The construction of the bridge will start soon," he added.
