"Don't stop rescue op"; family of missing Barge P305 personnel plead for help [watch]

It's been over fourteen days since any news, or whereabouts of Saurabh Jain, who was also employed on the Barge P305 that submerged in the Arabian Sea on May 17. His wife Megha Jain and brother-in-law Aditya Jain have been sending out heart-rending SOS messages on social media, requesting authorities to not stop the rescue operations till all the people are identified.

ONGC's accommodation barge sank off the coast of Mumbai in Heera Oil Fields after Cyclone Tauktae barrelled its way northwards. Tagging people who are known to amplify emergency requests to government authorities to news channels, all that Megha Jain has been pleading for are two things. "Please don't stop rescue operations till all the people are identified and also launch search operations at nearby islands. It could happen that the missing people have gone there."

His brother Aditya Jain has also been pleading to the concerned authorities to look into the matter, "We don't want to know whose fault was on barge or anything else. We just want that rescue operations don't stop."

When International Business Times reached out to Saurabh Jain's brother, he spoke about going through living hell every moment. "You cannot even imagine what we are going through at the moment.

Barge P305, an avoidable tragedy

If it takes the loss of human life to learn the lesson on the importance of following safety protocols, it isn't really a lesson learnt. What makes ONGC's Barge P305 a horrific tragedy is not the fact that safety protocols and security lapses occurred at various levels, but the fact that all of it could have been completely avoided.

On May 15, not left with even the slightest doubt over the impending extremely severe cyclonic storm, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) sounded out well-in-time about the biggest cyclone in decades that was going to hit the west coast of India. But even timely unambiguous notice through social media handles and directly to the concerned authorities couldn't avert the disaster.

In the FIR that has been registered against barge captain Rakesh Ballav and others, under Sections 304(2), 338, 34 it has been mentioned that despite having prior information of Cyclone Tauktae, the captain did not have any arrangement made for the safety of the staff onboard. That's not where the alleged lapses end. The report further says that Captain Ballav didn't give a distress call at the time he was supposed to.

The count so far

The Yellow Gate Police has confirmed to have received 71 bodies so far. Out of which, 18 are still unidentified. 53 of the bodies have been handed over to the families after being duly identified. The Navy had managed to rescue 186 crew members who were aboard P305 when it sank in the sea on May 17.

After a week, on May 24, the Indian Navy called off its search and rescue operations. As if the tragedy purely due to human error was not enough, now the families of victims have to request for something they deserve the very least. A closure.