Mumbai accident boat started filling water due to collision with Navy speed boat survivor of accident told whole story ntc
A major accident occurred in Mumbai when a Navy speed boat collided with a passenger boat. 13 people died in this, while 99 people were rescued. The boat was going to Elephanta Island from Gateway of India with passengers. The Navy said in a statement that during engine testing around 4 pm on Wednesday, a speed boat of the Navy lost control and collided with the passenger boat Neelkamal near Karanja in Mumbai.
Ganesh (age-45), an eyewitness to the accident, told that a boat (Navy’s speed boat) was circling in the Arabian Sea, while our boat was going towards Elephanta Island near Mumbai. I boarded the boat at 3.30 pm. For a moment the thought came in my mind that a Navy boat could collide with our boat and in the next few seconds this accident happened. Ganesh was riding on the Neelkamal boat, which collided with the Navy’s speed boat. Ganesh, a resident of Hyderabad, was the first person among the 99 people who were rescued.
‘After the collision our boat started capsizing’
Eyewitness Ganesh said that there were more than 100 passengers including children on the boat. After purchasing the ticket at 3.30 pm, I boarded the boat and went to the deck. Neelkamal boat was about 8 to 10 km away from Mumbai coast, I saw that the speed boat was circling at full speed. As soon as the speed boat collided with our boat, sea water started coming into our boat, after which the captain of the boat asked the passengers to wear life jackets as the boat started capsizing. He said that a naval personnel aboard our boat died due to his leg being amputated in the accident.
‘I took a life jacket and jumped into the sea’
Ganesh said that I took the life jacket, went up and jumped into the sea. He said that he was swimming for 15 minutes when the rescue team present there on another boat saved him and brought him to the Gateway of India along with other people. He said that rescue teams of Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Police had reached the boat within half an hour of the accident. I was in the first group of 10 rescued passengers.
‘There were not enough life jackets in the boat’
According to PTI, another survivor, Vinayak Matham from Bengaluru, said that he was on board the boat Neelkamal with his two colleagues. He said that at first I thought that the Navy craft personnel were out for fun, because their boat was circling around our boat. He also said that there were not enough life jackets in our boat. When passengers boarded the boat, they should have been wearing life jackets.
