Drilling vessel sinks,one dead,six missing

According to sources,a fishing trawler,Al Akbari,which was in the vicinity,rescued the remaining 25 crew members,all of them Indians.

Search for the missing crew has been mounted by the Coast Guard with ONGC and the vessel owners Comacoe Ltd (Coastal Maritime Construction and Engineering Ltd) pitching in.

“We were busy drilling and suddenly the vessel started sinking. It all happened in five minutes and we had no time to think about anything,” Logus Searcher chief engineer Suresh Jogi told The Sunday Express after the rescue. The ship is registered in Panama.

Sources said Al Akbari crew offloaded all the ice and their entire catch on board to accommodate the rescued crew members.

There was,however,no clarity on who had hired the vessel. While the Coast Guard said it was hired by Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation for exploration,the company denied it. GSPC chairman A K Joti said,“The vessel was hired by ONGC. It was doing a survey in the sea at south of Pipavav.”

While ONGC officials in Vadodara maintained that the local office had nothing to do with the operations at Pipavav,officials at Mumbai office of the ONGC too said the company had nothing to do with the vessel. “ONGC has nothing to do with it. We are only offering all possible assistance for rescue operations,” said a senior ONGC said from Mumbai,while refusing to be named.

According to the Gujarat Maritime Board officials,the deceased has been identified as Ravi Olly (21). Those missing were identified as Meyal Kumar (54),Subhas Kumar(28),Arol Susai ( 24),S Prasad (34) and Nadal Velkumar (28).

Preliminary reports said most of the crew members hail from UP,Bihar,Jharkhand and Orissa. The rescued have been taken to a government hospital in Jaffrabad for treatment. Preliminary reports by the GMB also revealed that the vessel capsized following uncontrollable listing while drilling.

Coast Guard officials said another vessel,Logo Surveyor was sent by the port authorities to bring the survivors ashore.