India, on Thursday, handed over disaster relief supplies and 33 rescued fishermen to Bangladesh. The fishermen had been adrift for more than 36 hours after Cyclone MORA struck Chittagong on May 31.
The fishermen were spotted by the alert crew of INS Sumitra, 96 nautical miles southwest of Chittagong on Thursday morning. The fishermen were rescued by marine commandos on board the ship, in a daring operation that saw the commandos jump into the sea as boats could not be used due to the rising waves of the sea.
Navy PRO, D.K. Sharma said, “As of now our ships are there in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. We knew that Cyclone Mora was becoming a threat. So, the Indian Navy was ready in all respects, because over the years, we have seen cyclones either hitting the eastern coast or turning towards the northeast and head towards Bangladesh and Myanmar. We were tracking this very closely and have kept our ships on standby.”
The Indian Navy has dispatched INS Ghariyal from Vishakhapatnam with HADR (Human Assistance Disaster Relief) to join the relief operations in the Cyclone Mora hit region.
About 80 houses have been damaged in Mizoram’s Saihah district by heavy rains and strong winds. Due to the storm, many parts of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Mizoram also received heavy rainfall.