9 killed, several missing after rescue boat overturns in Maharashtra’s Sangli district

At least nine people were killed after a rescue boat overturned in Maharashtra’s Sangli district on Thursday. The boat was carrying around 30 people. "It was a rescue boat which was trying to take people from flooded area to safer places. Nine bodies have been recovered till now. 10-12 are feared dead,” Milind Bharambe, special inspector general (law & order), Maharashtra Police was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Sixteen deaths in rain and flood-related incidents have been reported from western Maharashtra in the last seven days. Floodgates were opened in the dams in Maharashtra and barrages and reservoirs in Karnataka, where road and rail links remain hit by incessant monsoon rains.

Nearly 2.5 lakh people have been evacuated in Sangli, Kolhapur and Pune, Divisional Commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar said.

He warned people against travelling on the Mumbai-Bengaluru national highway.

Teams of the Territorial Army, the Navy and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are conducting rescue operations in Kolhapur and Sangli and six more NDRF teams will be airlifted to Kolhapur by Wednesday evening, he said.

“All the dams in the region are overflowing and the Met department has predicted continuous rains for the next three to four days. So if the catchment areas of dams receive more rain, possibility of more floods cannot be ruled out,” Mhaisekar added.