800 fishermen missing in cyclone-hit Arabian Sea

About 80 fishing trawlers, with an average of 10 men in each, are missing in cyclone-hit Arabian Sea, organisations of fishermen along India's west coast said Wednesday.

As Cyclone Phyan intensified and tore northwards, slated to make landfall along the north Maharashtra-south Gujarat coast late Wednesday night, there were reports of boats missing at sea, despite repeated warnings from the authorities over the last few days that no fisherman should venture out.

Gopal Tandel, president of the Daman Machimar Sangh (fishermen's association), told IANS: "Fifty fishing boats with a total estimated complement of about 500 fishermen are still out at sea and are on the path of the cyclone headed this way." Daman is a small coastal enclave on the Gujarat coast.

"There were about 80 boats out fishing but about 30 of them have either returned or are on their way back," Tandel added.

Administrator of the union territory of Daman, Satya Gopal, said the Coast Guard authorities had sent out a Dornier aircraft to warn fishing boats to return. He said that over the last three days, special warnings were being put out by the administration advising fishermen against venturing out to sea.

While there was no information from Maharashtra till Wednesday afternoon on any fishing boats missing at sea, fishermen's organisations in Goa told IANS that an estimated 30 trawlers were missing.

The Coast Guard started a search for them. "Our patrol vessels are already on the lookout for the trawlers. We have also pressed a lookout aircraft into the operation, which will scan the sea off Goa in search of the missing trawlers," Goa Coast Guard Commandant N. Saxena said.

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