Team Herald
CANACONA: Eight pilgrims met a watery grave while one was missing when a fibre boat fitted with outboard motor carrying 20 pilgrims including a crew member overturned while returning from a religious ceremony off the Karwar coast on Monday afternoon.
According to sources, the ill-fated Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) boat was retuning with devotees after attending the annual Lord Narasimha festival on Kurumghad island off the coast of Karwar town.
The boat had a seating capacity of 16 but due to the heavy rush of devotees to the festival all the boat operators were ferrying pilgrims beyond the seating capacity.
According to an eye-witness none of the occupants were wearing a life jacket when the boat capsized.
The incident occured when the boat was hit by a big wave when it reached the mouth of River Kali and within seconds the boat overturned and the 19 occupants including the crew member were flung ito the sea.
However 11 occupants managed to climb on the back of the floating overturned boat while eight got drowned with one reportedly still missing, a source said.
Those who died included four men, three women and a 3-year-old, all from Karwar taluka.
On seeing the incident other boats in the vicinity immediately rushed to rescue the victims but it was too.
Later Coast Guard and Navy vessels arrived and helped in the rescue operation.
As one occupant was still missing, divers from Coast Guard were pressed into service and by 5pm a helicopter from Navy, Goa was called to assist in the search operation.
Sources at Karwar police station said that seven were admitted in the Civil Hospital at Karwar and four were discharged after administering first aid.
This is the second major tragedy after 6 Goans had drowned on September 17, 2017 at Nagarmadi Waterfalls about 10kms from Karwar.
Meanwhile a pall of gloom has descended on Karwar after the tragedy, said Deelip Naik a local political leader from the taluka.
