Thiruvananthapuram: The government on Saturday requested the Navy, Coast Guard and Indian Air Force to continue search operations for fishers missing at sea after Cyclone Ockhi for another ten days. An official release here said chief secretary K. M. Abraham sent a letter to Rear Admiral R. Nadkarni, chief of staff, Southern Naval Command, Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria, AOC Southern Air Command and additional director general K Natarajan, Coast Guard commander (Western Seaboard), Mumbai, on this.
In his letter, he said the state government had come across reports from fishers here of floating bodies in the high seas and wanted the government to scale up search operations to locate missing men and retrieve bodies. They appealed the government to take their colleagues on board the rescue ships and interceptor boats. Mr Abraham asked the Navy and Coast Guard to arrange an adequate number of ships in Vizhinjam area for carrying them to the deep seas. A representative of the district administration should also be deployed in vessels carrying out search operations.
