At least six villagers are missing and feared drowned, while one swam ashore after a motorboat overturned in a sudden storm at Solapur's Ujani dam waters, officials said on Wednesday. The incident happened late Tuesday night.
On Wednesday morning, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) rushed a specialised team to the site and launched a rescue effort to trace the missing persons, the officials said.
According to locals, the tragedy occurred when the boat with seven people was sailing from Kugaon village in Solapur to Kalashi village in Pune on the opposite bank. The Solapur Police said that as per preliminary information, the motorboat with seven passengers set sail from Kugaon to Kalashi, but midway, a sudden thunderstorm accompanied by strong winds lashed the vicinity, churning up strong waves in the waters, causing the small vessel to overturn.
At least one person on board, a Solapur assistant police inspector Rahul Dongre, managed to swim safely to the opposite (Pune) shore while the others went missing in the darkness and have not yet been found until noon.
Their identities are given as Gokul Jadhav (30), his wife Komal (25), and their kids, including a three-year-old daughter Mahi, and a one-year-old son Shubham. A villager Gaurav Dongre and the boatman Anurag Avghade (35) are also missing.
The policeman Dongre, who swam safely to Kalashi, sounded an alarm and alerted the villagers, the Pune Police, and district administration besides other rescue authorities which rushed to the tragedy spot, but could do little in the darkness with sporadic rain.
Baramati MP and Nationalist Congress Party (SP) Working President Supriya Sule rushed to the spot and took stock of the situation and the rescue operations.
