Following heavy rains through the night and early morning on Tuesday, fisherfolk and their families in Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai, Palghar and Mumbai were caught in a bind. Several fishers were stuck at sea amid rough weather. Four boats which initially left from Mumbai’s Colaba area earlier this month, after the annual monsoon fishing ban ended on August 1, drifted off to reach Sindhudurg all the way at the southern end of the coast, while others found themselves at Dighi Port in Ratnagiri. There were also reports of fishers from Daman and Diu being stranded in Palghar and Vasai. However, for fishers in Mira-Bhayandar’s Uttan area, the scare was much worse, with the lives of at least 200 fisherfolk being on the line. Fishers were finally located by Tuesday evening after calmer weather prevailed.
“The weather has improved but we are unable to contact our family members,” remarks Allson Nigrel, a resident of Uttan, a fishing village in Bhayander taluka, Thane district. At 5 pm Tuesday, around 20 boats from Nigrel’s neighbourhood — comprising five East Indian fishing hamlets at Pali, Dongri, Uttan, Chowk and Bhatebandar — had not yet returned to shore.
“There are at least 10 people on each boat. Probably more. The boats are all registered with fishing societies in Pali-Uttan. It’s common for vessels to get lost or delayed in August and September, just after the fishing season starts, but it’s never happened that so many boats from our area have been missing at the same time,” said Bernard D’Mello, president of the Pali Uttan Machimaar Society, with worry painted on his face.
More than two decades ago, D’Mello recalls, he was lost at sea for 18 days after a storm, surviving on small meals of rice kanji, and was tense that so many of his colleagues and relatives might be facing a similar predicament, or worse. His grand-nephew, Sachin Miranda, was out on a trawler as well. Suvarna Miranda, his wife, was unable to speak clearly through her worries.
Austin Bavigar (55), whose two sons (Velasree, 35, and Olympic, 25) had been out at sea since Saturday night, spent the entire day on the beach, staring into the ocean hoping to see their boat pass by on its way to Chowk Bandar, the safest harbour in the area where thousands of boats had already congregated during the night, to seek shelter from the rains and driving winds.
The beach was crowded with similar faces. 45-year-old Christopher N was waiting for his younger brother, who works as khalashi (labourer) on a trawler that operates more than 35 nautical miles from the coast.
“We can’t even get through on their satellite phone,” he said worriedly. A young girl, Delina Patil, was worried sick for her elder brother Denzil. She had been up since 4:30 am when she heard the rain getting intense and, and had not had anything to eat since. It was only between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm that all the boats finally managed to contact their respective society offices, either through the Coast Guard or via satellite phones.
Anklesh Kartan, secretary of the Dongri Fisherfolk Sarvoday Sahakari Society, said, “Sixteen of our boats, with at least 100 people on them, were not contactable throughout the night and the day. We heard from them around 7 pm, and they said they would reach back sometime after midnight. We had been trying to reach them via satellite phones every ten minutes. It is a huge relief.” By 8 pm, every single boat from Uttan had been accounted for, with the airwaves clearing up and the Coast Guard helping shepherd them back home.
A senior official at the Coast Guard’s headquarters in Mumbai, seeking anonymity, said, “The entire fishing belt between Uttan, Vasai, Arnala and Palghar, extending up to Daman and Diu, has seen very heavy rain offshore during the night. It was too rough for choppers to fly, so we deployed two Dornier fixed-wing aircraft in addition to several rescue boats and one larger patrol vessel to shepherd the fishermen back to the nearest harbour. Fortunately, we have not had to rescue anyone today, and there have been no casualties reported. We will continue patrolling tomorrow, just in case.”
“The Coast Guard has done a tremendous job in ferrying fishing vessels safely. Right now they are positioned at 50 nautical miles and have assured our community that they will remain there till every single fisher is bought home safely. Today’s coordination between the Coast Guard and fisheries department was exemplary and helped avoid loss of life, thus far,” said Devendra Tandel, president, Akhil Maharashtra Machhimar Kruti Samiti.