The ongoing search and rescue operation in the Arabian Sea for the missing fishermen in the aftermath of Cyclone Ockhi yielded two more bodies on Sunday.
According to officials, the bodies, which had been floating in the sea off Kochi coast, were fished out and brought to the Vypeen boat jetty by evening. The bodies will be shifted to the Ernakulam General Hospital for post-mortem, they said.
Meanwhile, the operations to bring back the fishermen rescued from the high seas and sheltered in the Lakshadweep Islands continued during the day with as many as 250 fishermen on board 22 fishing vessels reaching Kochi on Sunday. According to officials with the Fisheries Department, the fishing vessels carrying the rescued fishermen arrived at the Thoppumpady fishing harbour between Saturday midnight and Sunday morning.
Of the fishermen returned, only 41 were Keralites while about 189 were natives of various coastal districts of Tamil Nadu. They also included 14 Orissa natives, five from Assam and one from Andhra Pradesh.
A team of revenue officials and an official delegation from Tamil Nadu, which is camping in Kochi, coordinated the arrangements, including financial assistance for their onward journey to their native places.
The authorities are yet to trace the location of about 28 out of the 120 vessels, which set sail from the Thoppumpady harbour days before the cyclone’s onset. ‘‘All of these boats, which are on multi-days fishing expedition, should be safe as they are expected to be located off the Goa coast. They are mostly likely not to have encountered a rough sea and hence are expected to return only on completion of their expedition,’’said S. Mahesh, Fisheries Deputy Director, Kochi.
