Prakasam Barrage: Stranded Boats to be Pulled Towards Bund with Heavy Duty Excavator

Vijayawada: With the change of plan, rescue teams made attempts at Prakasam Barrage in River Krishna to pull one of the three stranded boats with a 200-tonne capacity excavator towards the bund on Friday.

This was being done with the help of an iron chain, officials supervising the salvage operations said.

As the operations continued for the third consecutive day, the experts brought from Kakinada and Vijayawada made efforts to disentangle one of the three crashed boats, which is perched atop the other two. The aim was to pull it towards the bund.

Officials said if this is successful, the other two boats too would be extricated and pulled towards the bund. Two big boats have been arranged to pull the salvaged boat away.

The earlier plan was to cut the stuck boats at the barrage into two pieces each and airlift them with the help of balloons towards the bund area. But, this was found not feasible.

The services of the divers who came from Visakhapatnam were being used to disentangle the three boats.

Though five boats were stopped at the barrage when the Krishna river was in spate, one boat was found to have been washed away through the lifted gates at the barrage and three boats were found entangled and another boat is believed drowned.