Barge Mishap: All missing bodies recovered from Arabian Sea
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Mumbai: After nearly a week-long search and rescue operation, the mortal remains of 86 missing individuals aboard Barge P-305 and tugboat Varaprada have been recovered by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard on Sunday.
"All 274 reported missing have been accounted for. Final confirmation, however, will be pending till the identification of all bodies is complete," the officials said.
The police have initiated the process of conducting DNA testing of the bodies to establish the identity of the victims, an official said.
A total of 188 survivors were rescued at sea. Of these, two were crew members aboard tugboat Varaprada which had a total strength of 13.
In the past week, 70 bodies were recovered from the Arabian Sea by the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard.
Besides, over the last couple of days, eight bodies have been recovered, after they were washed ashore on the Raigad coast of Maharashtra, while another eight were found from the Valsad coast in Gujarat.
The navy's teams of expert divers and specialist ship INS Makar located the wreck of Papaa-305 late on Saturday, and a search is still on for tracing the wreckage of the tugboat.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has set up a three-member panel to investigate the events that led to the barge getting stranded on May 17.