Khammam flood rescue: SDRF personnel spend 10 hours stranded after boats capsize in Bethupalli tank
SDRF personnel spent nearly 10 hours stranded after their rescue boats capsized in floodwaters at Bethupalli tank in Khammam district. NDRF teams eventually rescued the missing personnel and fishermen after flood currents disrupted the initial rescue operation.
Khammam: The SDRF members, whose boats capsized by floodwaters in Bethupalli tank at Sathupalli in the district on Wednesday, had spent nine to ten horrifying hours in the dead of the night waiting to be rescued, said a firefighter, Raja of Aswaraopet fire station.
Narrating the ordeal they undergone after their rescue mission gone wrong, he said that the floodwaters entering the tank made their two boats with the personnel hurled over the tank surplus weir.
But he and other three managed to stay in their boat, which after around 900 metres of rough journey downstream stuck in between two trees making them stay steady in the waters, while several others climbed the trees downstream to save themselves, Raja said.
Then he managed to call his superior officer in Kothagudem with his mobile phone with a low battery for help. Prior to embarking on rescue operation at Bethupalli tank, his team has rescued 10 farmers stranded in Mallaiahvagu near Gandugulapalli in Dammapet mandal, he noted.
Fishermen, Yadagiri and Laxman of Ramanagaram who went into the tank to fix the fishnets said breaching of upstream tanks and overflowing streams, led to sudden rise in water level making the fishermen stranded in the tank waters and hurling the rescue team boats downstream.
Laxman said district Collector Divakara and the local SI were in constant touch with them through mobile phones making calls for one hour until the rescue operation concluded at around 4 am in the morning.
Bethupalli Fishermen Cooperative Society secretary Podili Srinivas Rao stated that one of the rescue boats’ engine stopped after a malfunction and the second one hit it making them capsize and pushed into the downstream by the heavy floodwaters.
The Collector stated that eight fishermen had ventured into the tank and stranded due to intensifying floodwaters. An SDRF team from Bhadrachalam was deployed; in their first boat trip, they successfully rescued three fishermen who did not know how to swim.
While rescuing the others using a second boat, the flood current surged further, causing both boats to capsize. Then NDRF teams from Vijayawada, led by Captain Kiran and Neeraj were deployed and all the missing persons were rescued.
