Navy recovers 2 bodies on Andhra beach, search on for 3 others

Visakhapatnam: The Indian Navy on Saturday recovered two bodies of the engineering students who went missing at the beach in Andhra Pradesh’s Anakapalli district.

The Navy and Coast Guard were carrying out the search operation with two helicopters and four boats at Pudimadaka beach off Bay of Bengal.

Bodies of P. Ganesh and K. Jagadeesh were recovered on Saturday.

With this, the bodies of three engineering students were found while search was on for three other missing students – S. Jaswanth Kumar, B. Satish Kumar and Rama Chandu. The body of G. Pavan Kumar (19) was recovered on Friday.

Local fishermen with 20 boats are also helping in the search operation. “The search operation will continue till we find the remaining bodies,” an official said.

Police and the revenue department were also assisting in the search operation.

A joy trip of 15 of friends at the beach turned tragic when one of them drowned and five others went missing. Fishermen rescued another youth identified as S. Teja. He was shifted to a KGH Hospital at Visakhapatnam.

According to police, the students of a private engineering college at Anakapalli town had gone to beach, about 50 km from Visakhapatnam. Seven of them had stepped into the waters. They were apparently pulled deeper into the waters by strong waves.

The beach where the incident occurred is not a tourist place but some people visit the place despite warning signs installed there.

District Superintendent of Police S. Gauthami, who was supervising the rescue operations along with other top officials, said though the marine police do the patrolling to warn people going closer to the coast, an unfortunate mishap occurred on Friday.