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GUWAHATI: A ferry with some 250 passengers aboard sank in a river in northeast India on Monday following a storm, police said, adding that 50 people had swum to safety.
A double-decker ferry sank in the fast-flowing Brahmaputra river in Assam state, police said, adding that the fate of the other 200 passengers was not immediately known.
Indian state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan said more than 100 people were feared killed in the ferry accident.
“The steamer was travelling with about 250 people on board when it capsized mid-stream in the Brahmaputra following a storm,” P.C. Haloi, police chief of Dhubri district, told AFP by telephone.
Witnesses said they saw victims being swept away by the river's strong currents.
The boat was on its way from Dhubri to the adjoining district of Fakirganjan when the accident occurred in late afternoon amid strong currents, Haloi said.
Rescue workers rushed to the site and were struggling to find survivors, but darkness and bad weather were hampering rescue efforts.
“I could see people being swept away as the river current was very strong,”Rahul Karmakar, who witnessed the sinking, told AFP.
Dhubri is some 300 kilometres (186 miles) from Guwahati, Assam's largest city.
Karmakar said there were women and children among those on board the ferry, which was carrying farmers, fishermen and other local people.
Boats are a common form of transport in India's remote rural regions and accidents are common due to lax safety standards and overloading.
In one of the last major ferry disasters in India, at least 79 Muslim pilgrims drowned when an overcrowded boat sank in the eastern state of West Bengal in eastern India.
Assam state chief minister Tarun Gogoi said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had telephoned him and promised to rush disaster response units from the national capital, New Delhi, and other locations.
“Army, Border Security Force and other rescue teams with mechanised boats have moved to the site but nightfall and bad weather are hampering rescue efforts,” Gogoi told AFP.
Singh said in a statement that he was “shocked and grieved to know about the loss of lives” and called it a “tragedy.”
He said he had given instructions “for all possible assistance to the government of Assam in relief operations and also for assistance from the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund to the families of the deceased.”
