Divers recover woman clutching child from sunken cruise boat in Bargi Dam

Rescuers involved in the Bargi Dam cruise boat tragedy in Madhya Pradesh described the emotional recovery of a woman found clutching her child inside the sunken vessel. Nine people died and 22 others were rescued after the boat capsized during a storm

Jabalpur: In a heart-wrenching discovery that moved seasoned rescuers, a diving team of a paramilitary force found the body of a woman onboard the ill-fated cruise boat that capsized in Madhya Pradesh’s Bargi Dam still clutching her child in a final, tight embrace.

The Agra-based diving team described the challenging conditions inside the submerged vessel, where limited space and jagged iron rods forced rescuers to use hammers to create narrow openings, with one diver almost getting trapped.

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As many as nine people have died and 22 have been rescued after a cruise boat overturned and sank in Bargi Dam in Jabalpur district following a sudden storm on Thursday evening, officials said.

“We initially encountered difficulty retrieving the body of a woman from the wreckage. We then discovered that she was holding her child tightly, and it was difficult to separate them. Our team was deeply moved by the scene,” one of the divers told PTI Videos.

He said the conditions were extremely challenging, with limited space, broken structures and low visibility hampering the rescue operation.

Another member of the rescue team from Agra said visibility inside the vessel was extremely poor, and the team kept encountering broken structures and iron rods that snagged their equipment.

In some places, the team had to squeeze through narrow openings to conduct the search, he said, adding that at one point, a diver got trapped and had to be rescued.

According to the rescuers, the operation had become perilous as the boat’s structure had completely collapsed on both sides, with internal grilles making the pathways dangerously narrow.

Despite these hurdles, the paramilitary team has so far recovered five bodies from the murky depths of the reservoir, including one child and four adults.