New Delhi: At least four people died by drowning and seven others went missing after an overloaded boat capsized in the Wardha river in Maharashtra’s Amravati district on Tuesday (September 14).
The police said that two of the male boat occupants aged 27 and 35 swam to safety following the accident.
The incident took place around 10.30 am in Warud tehsil under the jurisdiction of Benoda police station, when 12 people from Gadegaon village along with the boatman were going to a temple after visiting a waterfall nearby, a police official said.
Prima facie, it appears that the boat was unable to sustain the weight of its occupants, he said.
The victims had come to Zunj in Warud tehsil for the post-death rituals of a relative on Monday. On Tuesday morning, they all got on to the boat to visit a temple. However, the vessel capsized in the middle of the river, the official said.
Teams of the police and district disaster management authority have so far been fished out four bodies, and three of them were identified as boatman Narayan Matare (45), Wanshika Shivankar (2) and Kiran Khandale (25), the police said.
Efforts were on to trace the other seven missing people, they said.
Local MLA Devendra Bhuyar and Warud’s sub-divisional officer Nitin Hingole rushed to the spot to supervise the search and rescue operation.
