Bethupalli tank: all 11 rescuers swept away when boats capsized in Khammam brought out alive

Every one of the 11 people carried away when two rescue boats overturned in the brimming Bethupalli tank in Sathupalli, Khammam district, was brought out alive in the early hours of Thursday, 5 November, after a search through the night. Khammam police said the operation was over and no lives were lost.

The 11 were six SDRF men of the Kothagudem police battalion, four Fire Services men and one villager who had gone along. NDRF and Fire Services crews searched side by side. Some of the missing had stayed in one group and were able to talk to officials by phone, which helped the teams find them. District fire officer Ajay Kumar said the first man was pulled out at about 2.15 am and four more around 3 am. Three others were reached next; after a pause the work resumed at 5 am and the rest were ashore within two hours. All were taken to hospital in Sathupalli for a check-up.

How the boats went over

The trouble started on the afternoon of Wednesday, 4 November, when five fishermen went out on the tank to put up nets while water was already pouring over its surplus weir. The level climbed quickly and cut them off. A man who paddled out on a makeshift raft to help, and two fishermen who came from elsewhere, were stranded too, so eight people were now stuck. A Fire Services boat got three of them back to the bank.

Around 7.30 pm the 11-member team left in two boats for the other five. The pull of the overflow flipped both boats and swept all 11 away. The five fishermen scrambled onto an earthen mound out in the water, and an NDRF team sent from Vijayawada had them on shore by about 11.20 pm.

Night search and the rain behind it

Collector Divakara T.S. stayed at the tank until about 3 am, and Sathupalli MLA Matta Ragamayi was also there. Officials lined up drones to drop life jackets. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy told the Collector to step up the search and asked Chief Secretary Sanjay Jaju to keep reviewing it, the CMO said. Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar spoke to the Collector and to senior NDRF officers, and state ministers Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy and Tummala Nageswara Rao followed the work by phone. Ponguleti later thanked the rescue teams on X.

The tank filled after Cyclone Murasu crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast on Tuesday, 3 November, and Aswaraopet logged 278.5 mm of rain by 8 pm on Wednesday. Water from the tank entered a double-bedroom housing colony nearby, and its residents were moved to relief centres.