Guwahati: A woman was killed and three people remain missing after a vehicle carrying 10 passengers plunged into the Lohit River in Arunachal Pradesh’s Anjaw district on August 13.
The accident occurred at around 6 am at Sarti along NH-113 on the Walong-Hawai road, near the India-China border. The vehicle reportedly went off the road, fell about 300 feet through a gorge and landed in the Lohit River before being submerged.
Six passengers, four men, a woman and a child, were rescued in an injured condition, while three others could not be traced.
The District Disaster Management Officer (DDMO), Anjaw, received information about the accident at around 9.59 am.
The District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) then launched a search operation with Anjaw Police, the Indian Army, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the district administration, local residents and volunteers.
SDRF personnel and local police on Saturday searched around 12 km downstream from the accident site. The search ended at around 5 pm after the missing people could not be located.
The authorities later sought assistance from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as the SDRF did not have sufficient resources for the search and recovery operation. The NDRF team arrived at the site at around 8.45 am on Sunday and joined the SDRF in the operation.
The NDRF began a specialised underwater search on Sunday, with the DDMA, SDRF and local police assisting the operation. Search teams are checking downstream sections of the Lohit River and areas where the strong current may have carried the missing people.
The DDMA is coordinating the search operation, while police and medical teams remain stationed at the accident site.
The search entered its fourth day on Sunday and remains focused on locating the three missing people and recovering the submerged vehicle from the Lohit River.