Faced with high-speed wind and swelling sea, the ill-fated barge Pappa-305, with 261 crew on board, lost anchors and smashed into an unmanned platform before sinking in the Arabian Sea after its captain ignored weather warnings and chose not to move the vessel away from the path of severe cyclonic storm Tauktae, a survivor recounted.
A person, rescued from one of the three barges that adrifted after being smashed by the severe cyclone, said that while other barges started to move out of the path of the cyclone when they received warning, the Master of P-305 hardly moved 200 metres from its location near Heera oilfield in the Arabian Sea.
Barge P305 with 261 personnel at the Bombay High offshore oilfield was wrecked by cyclonic Tauktae(FILE)
Mumbai:
Afcons Infrastructure, whose chartered barge P305 with 261 personnel at the Bombay High offshore oilfield was wrecked by cyclonic storm Tauktae earlier this week, on Thursday said the weather deteriorated rapidly and reached levels far worse than forecasts.
As many as 49 personnel on board the barge have been killed and 26 are still missing.
Afcons Infrastructure, the engineering arm of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, also claimed it has followed all standard practices.
Afcons, on behalf of its three consortium partners Triune Energy Services, Nauvata Engineering and Halani International in a statement said weather forecasts received on May 14 predicted that sustained wind speed of maximum 40 knots (classified as a tropical storm by them) is likely to occur at our specific work location late May 16-early 17.