Ahmedabad/Panaji/Mumbai, November 11
Nearly 80 fishing trawlers, with an average of 10 men in each, are missing in cyclone-hit Arabian Sea, organisations of fishermen along the west coast said on 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.

“Fifty fishing boats with a total estimated complement of around 500 fishermen are still out at sea and are on the path of the cyclone headed this way,” Gopal Tandel, president of the Daman Machimar Sangh (fishermen’s association), said. Daman is a small coastal enclave on the Gujarat coast.

“There were around 80 boats out fishing but only 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 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 said 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,” Goa Coast Guard Commandant N Saxena said.

The country’s financial capital narrowly escaped the fury of Cyclone Phyan as it weakened around 130 km off the western coast, the Met department said this afternoon.

As the cyclone showed considerable signs of weakening, the alert was considerably lowered. However, the Met department warned that risk remained of heavy to very heavy rainfall. Mumbai, Konkan, Goa and other places in the western coast received very heavy rains and winds rose to more than 65 km an hour amidst warnings that the intensity of Cyclone Phyan would increase further.

Security forces were kept on high alert and the Navy and the Coast Guard were put on emergency mode in Mumbai, Ratnagiri and coastal Maharashtra earlier today. Fishermen were asked not to venture out into the sea as a precautionary measure. However, Coast Guard officials said they were responding to distress calls from fishermen who had already put out to sea. Coast Guard officials further said seven fishermen were winched out by helicopter from the sea after their vessels had capsized.