Salvage team rescues barge off Rameswaram

Ramanathapuram:A hovercraft of the Coast Guard monitoring the rescued barge in the Adam’s Bridge area on Wednesday.Following a determined effort by a 25-member salvage team, a barge owned by a company at Karwar in Karnataka, that ran aground with 13 crew members near the 2nd island off Rameswaram, was rescued on Wednesday.

The accident took place on May 26 when the vessel was trying to take an unapproved route to Visakhapatnam from Tuticorin.It took more than two weeks for the salvage team, based at Tuticorin, to retrieve the barge, weighing 1312 tonnes. The Coast Guard, Mandapam, provided technical and moral assistance to the team. The barge was carrying 11 tonnes of fuel, besides 210 litres of lubricant oil and 100 litres of kerosene.

Commander K. Janardhanan, Commanding Officer, Coast Guard Station, Mandapam, told The Hindu that the barge was pulled out safely by employing conventional methods involving the use of ropes, anchors, brackets and other instruments. Since the barge was grounded in a shallow area, the team had to move the vessel inch by inch.H-183, a hovercraft of the Coast Guard, and an interceptor craft monitored the mission right from the day of the accident.