Navy, Coast Guard rescue 9 crew of a tug in a joint operation

All the nine crew members of a tug, which hit rocks around five nautical miles away from the Kaup shore in Udupi district on Sunday, were rescued in a joint operation by the Indian Coast Guard and the Navy on Monday.

The crew members were taken to the New Mangalore Port Trust hospital.

Tauktae’ rapidly ramps up as an extremely severe cyclone

A statement by the Indian Coast Guard said that a joint synergy operation was taken up by Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy to rescue nine lives from Tug

CoromandalSupporter IX on Monday. The tug had run aground at Mulkhi Rock along Karnataka coast. It said five survivors were rescued by Indian Coast Guard Ship Varaha and four survivors were winched by the helicopter of the Indian Navy. It said that all crew members are healthy.

AV Ramana, Chairman NMPT, told presspersons that the tug, which was at the outer anchorage drifted towards a beach near Udupi coast on Saturday night due to the Cyclone Tauktae.

Rough seas

He said the height of sea wave was around 5 metres on that particular day, and the wind speed was around 60-70 kmph. It appears the tug drifted all the way from the outer anchorage to the place near Udupi because of the storm weather, he said.

2 tugs face distress along Karnataka coast

Stating that NMPT was never informed when the tug lifted anchor, Ramana said an SOS was sent by the tug to the NMPT when it landed in trouble.

Immediately NMPT informed the authorities of Indian Coast Guard and Coastal Security Police for further action.

The rescue operation was hampered on Sunday due to the rough weather. However, a Coast Guard ship was stationed in the vicinity of the tug to monitor the situation.