Under the humid Visakhapatnam sky, the fishing harbour, a roaring trade hub, has turned into a theatre of grief. The usual boisterous chatter about the vibrant catches among the fishermen has vanished, while people from the community sobbing for their missing family members has become a common sight in the past week.
Inside the tin roofs of the Mechanised Boat Owners’ Association building, women wrapped in faded cotton saris stare blankly into the grey horizon of the Bay of Bengal. There are no tears left, only a hollow, exhausting silence.
On Saturday (July 4, 2026), the mechanised fishing vessel IND-AP-MM-V5-83, carrying seven fisherfolk, capsized just 10 nautical miles off the Gangavaram coast in Visakhapatnam. Six of the seven fishermen who went into the sea for the catch have been presumed to be dead.
“I survived, but I don’t know how. I watched my brother, my nephew, and other family members disappear one by one before my eyes. We kept swimming, hoping someone would rescue us, but there was no one,” Kari Chinna, the lone survivor and boat owner, says.
Also read: Search called off for missing fishermen; three-member panel submits report to A.P. government
Chinna recounts a brutal 18-hour survival battle in the rough sea conditions. While he recovered from severe exposure and saltwater aspiration at KIMS ICON Hospital in Gajuwaka, Visakhapatnam, families at the jetty mourned the six who vanished – R. Bandiyya, 43, Meda Chinna Ammoru, 48, Kari Chinnayya, 32, Kari Seethodu, 55, and two young men, Amara Appalaraju, 24, and Kari Garagayya, 24, who were the sole breadwinners of their families.
On Wednesday evening, after a 72-hour multi-agency search operation, the administration quietly transitioned from a rescue mission to a recovery operation.
A three-member fact-finding committee submitted its report to the Andhra Pradesh government with a cold, devastating conclusion: “The six missing fishermen are officially presumed dead.”
As State Minister for Excise and Mines Kollu Ravindra distributed ex gratia cheques of ₹10 lakh to the bereaved families, the reality settled over the coast like a winter fog. The sea had claimed its toll, leaving behind deep structural questions, community finger-pointing, and a coastline scarred by sudden tragedy.
The last call
The voyage had begun with the usual optimism on July 1. The crew, a tight-knit group of relatives and lifelong neighbours from coastal Visakhapatnam and neighbouring Vizianagaram districts, set off from the Visakhapatnam Fishing Harbour.
The weather was typical for early July – choppy but manageable for a sturdy mechanised boat designed to handle deep-sea swells.
For three days, the trip went according to plan, the hold gradually filling with the seasonal catch. But by July 4, the atmosphere over the Bay of Bengal had turned ominous. A powerful low-pressure system, which later weakened along the Odisha coast, developed rapidly, whipping up furious waves. On shore, anxious families tracked weather updates and called the crew, urging them to head back.
At approximately 2.30 p.m. on Saturday, Kari Chinna speaks to his family over a crackling phone connection. “We are near Gangavaram,” he assures them while watching the coastline. “We will be inside the harbour gates within an hour.” It was the last time anyone on shore would hear those voices.
Minutes later, the boat’s engine failed, stripping the vessel of steerage and leaving it broadside to towering four-to-five-metre waves. A massive wave smashed into its side, tipping it violently.
“One of our boys, Kari Chinnayya, went below deck into the fish hold to secure the hatches,” Chinna recounts. “Within seconds, a second wave flipped us completely. Chinnayya was trapped inside the belly of the vessel. We could hear him, but we couldn’t reach him. He went down with the boat.”
The remaining six fishermen scrambled onto the slippery, upturned fibreglass hull, clinging to it for six agonising hours through freezing rain.
Around 9 p.m., the trapped air escaped, and the hull sank to the bottom of the deep. Thrown back into the water, they held hands and swam towards distant ship lights, but the powerful undercurrents tore them apart one by one.
Chinna drifted until 9 a.m. on Sunday, when the Panama-flagged cargo ship MV Universal Wealthy, carrying Chinese nationals, spotted him, threw out a lifebuoy, and alerted the maritime authorities.
Families of the missing fishermen in Visakhapatnam fishing harbour share a moment of profound heartbreak and collective grief following the news of their loved ones going missing in the deep sea.
| Photo Credit:
V. Raju
Anatomy of an air-sea rescue
The distress call triggered an immediate, large-scale search and rescue (SAR) operation across thousands of square nautical miles. The Indian Coast Guard deployed frontline patrol vessels ICGS Kanaklata Barua and ICGS Veera to establish a search grid based on drift models generated by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS). Naval Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) from INS Dega and fixed-wing Dornier aircraft scanned the turbulent waters using thermal imaging and advanced radar systems.
While the sheer depth of the continental shelf and heavy siltation complicated subsurface tracking, the state’s coastal law enforcement worked around the clock to manage the search grid and coordinate with central defence agencies.
“The Eastern Naval Command deployed two ships and two helicopters, a Sea King and an Advanced Light Helicopter, for the search and rescue operation. Electronic surveillance was maintained through the Regional Operations Station in Visakhapatnam. Despite the adverse weather, ships and aircraft deployed in the operation continued searching for the remaining six fishermen,” Gopinath Jatti, Inspector General (IG), Coastal Security, said.
By Tuesday midnight, having exhausted all physical search efforts and survival timeframes, the active search was called off, and the case was handed over to the civilian administration.
The blame game
While the government moved swiftly with financial relief, leaders within the local fishing community pointed to systemic gaps.
Janakiram, a prominent leader of the Visakhapatnam Mechanised Boat Owners’ Association, questioned the initial response timeline, arguing that an earlier mobilisation during the midnight hours of Saturday could have changed the outcome.
The tragedy has brought broader, long-standing structural problems into sharp focus. Deep-sea fishers frequently venture far beyond the reach of mobile towers, leaving them completely cut off when weather systems suddenly turn volatile. While central guidelines permit 24-metre vessels, Andhra Pradesh’s fleet is restricted to smaller 5 to 15-metre boats that struggle against heavy monsoon swells. Most local vessels lack even the basic International Labour Organization (ILO) safety requirements, including satellite transponders, modern navigation tools, life rafts, and crew insurance.
Arjilli Dasu, General Secretary of the Federation of Indian Fisher Organisations (FIFO), emphasised that the core problem is the lack of protective infrastructure. “We are sending men into the deep sea in vessels that lack satellite communication terminals and emergency position-indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs),” Dasu said. “The ₹10 lakh ex gratia is a band-aid on a gaping wound. We don’t want compensation for dead bodies; we want investment in systems that keep our brothers alive.”
The administrative resolution
To bypass the standard seven-year waiting period required under the Indian Evidence Act to declare a missing person legally dead, the Andhra Pradesh government invoked the provisions of G.O. 54.
A special panel comprising the RDO, DSP, and the Assistant Director of Fisheries combined survivor testimony with Coast Guard technical logs to issue an expedited “presumed dead” certification, enabling the release of ₹10 lakh directly to dependent nominees within 92 hours.
Yet, this tragedy highlights a much larger crisis unfolding along Andhra Pradesh’s 1,053-km coastline, home to 2.35 lakh active fishermen across 694 villages. Over the last decade, maritime accidents have claimed nearly 700 local lives.
Due to industrial pollution, municipal sewage discharge, and climate change affecting sea surface temperatures and current patterns, the traditional 5-km near-shore fishing zones have virtually disappeared. Fishermen must now travel over 30 km offshore, transforming what was once a simple four-hour fishing trip into a gruelling deep-sea expedition lasting anywhere from 12-168 hours, exponentially increasing their exposure to volatile open-sea risks.
The authorities launched an extensive search operation over the sea with choppers of the Indian Coast Guard.
| Photo Credit:
V. Raju
The haunted jetty
As the sun sets over Visakhapatnam harbour, fishing activity continues relentlessly. Yet, at the edge of the pier, veteran fishermen stare silently towards the Gangavaram headland. They know that ten miles offshore, beneath the heavy swells, lies the wreckage of IND-AP-MM-V5-83 – now a lonely underwater tomb for six of their own, swallowed by a sudden mechanical failure and a rogue wave on an otherwise routine Saturday.
The grieving families will return to their villages, using the compensation to clear mounting debts incurred for nets and diesel. Their children will grow up hearing stories of fathers who vanished into the deep blue, while the sea remains vast, indifferent, and forever hungry.
