The Indian Navy divers are likely to carry out an operation in Dikhow river in Assam’s Sivsagar district to locate a vehicle, which slipped and drowned in the river along with five members of a family on late Saturday evening.
The incident took place in Dechial village of Sivsagar district on Saturday when the vehicle one Haren Bora was driving with his family inside the car, skidded and fell into the river. Besides Bora, his mother, wife and two teenage daughters were in the vehicle.
Bora, a businessman hailing from Sivsagar district was returning to his home from his sister’s house on the fateful Saturday evening. Sivsagar district is located about 370 kms from Assam’s capital town Guwahati.
Although the para commandos of Indian Army, jawans of National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Rescue Force (SDRF) have been carrying out operations to locate the vehicle since Saturday night, it is yet to yield any result so far.
“A 10 member Naval Diving team from Eastern Naval Command (ENC) along with associated diving equipment have been airlifted from Visakhapatnam by IAF AN32 aircraft for search ops at Sivasagar district Assam this morning. The Naval Diving team will augment the NDRF team and civil authorities in the search and recovery operations,” said a spokesman of the Indian Army.
The Assam government had earlier sought Indian Navy’s diving assistance to locate a vehicle which had been reported drowned along with five members of a family in Dikhow.
“A team of 14 divers of Army Special Forces unit under the Spear Corps based at Dimapur commenced the search in early morning on Monday.
“The river is 70 to 80 metre wide with strong currents, making the search a slow and deliberate process,” said the Army spokesman while adding that due to the recent rains, the water has become muddy which is also delaying the search.
“We have launched operations to trace the vehicle and its borders immediately after the incident. However, we are yet to locate the vehicle due to several difficulties.
“The vision under water is almost nil due to the mud in the river. Our divers cannot see anything under water. Besides there are strong undercurrent in the river which have affected the operation,” said Assam’s Additional Director General (Fire and Emergency Services) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta.