PTI, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today visited cyclone-hit Kerala and assured the state of all help while asserting that rescue operations would continue till every missing fishermen was brought back safely. A total of 20 fishermen from the state were rescued by Navy today while the toll in rain-related incidents in the aftermath of ‘Ochki’ cyclone was officially put at 25.
Sitharaman gave the assurance at a meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here after visiting some areas hit by the natural calamity in the district, a CMO release said. Her meeting came even as Naval ships, helicopters, Coast Guard vessels and Air Force planes continued to be engaged in the rescue and relief operations to track down the 100 odd fishermen, reported missing after the cyclone tore into the state’s south coast on November 30.
The toll in the rain-related incidents was put at 25 by the state government. Of this, twelve bodies were yet to be identified. Eleven of the deceased were from Thiruvanathapuram district while the other belonged to Kollam, officials said. A Navy ship located a fishing boat with nine crew members, missing from Kochi for the last 15 days, off Lakshadweep coast while ll fishermen, who put out to sea from here, were brought back to the shore at Kochi, they said.
During the meeting with Sitharaman, Vijayan requested for generous help by the Centre for relief works considering the gravity of the situation if there was any technical hurdle to declare ‘Ockhi’ cyclone as a national disaster. He also sought financial assistance for implementing long-term rehabilitation schemes for the affected fishermen. The Defence Minister wanted the state to prepare a
detailed memorandum and send it to the Centre, the CMO release said.Earlier, talking to reporters, Sitharaman said “Search and rescue operations will continue..There will not be any
dilution of operations.”
“We want to make sure that each and every fishermen who had gone from Kerala comes back safely,” she said. She visited Vizhinjam and Poonthura fishing hamlets, from where most of the fishermen have been reported missing. “They (fishing community) are in deep distress…I can see it,” she said. Sitharaman said fishermen who had gone much before the cyclone warning, probably 15 days ago, had been spotted in the sea and given food and water.
“So I will not lose hope even for a minute. If boats that had gone 15 days ago had come back with fishermen alive, we will make every attempt to bring everybody back,” she said. The fishermen’s demand for including some of their men in the rescue team had been accepted and already 11 of them have joined the Navy boats and helicopters engaged in the operations, she added.
“This is the time to keep my focus on rescue operations,” she said replying to a question. The Minister addressed the fishermen both at Vizhinjam and Poonthura, assuring them that there would be no laxity in the search operations.
