Boat tosses up, down before overturned by big waves in the Hooghly near Uluberia
Telegraph | 2 April 2025
A boat kept tossing up and down before overturning amid tall waves in the Hooghly near Uluberia on Monday morning.
According to police, a mechanised trawler with four men on board had overturned. All four were rescued by other boats nearby, said officers.
The trawler was not ferrying passengers at the time of the capsize, but it was not immediately clear if the four were on a joyride, said the police.
A clip of the capsize shows a couple of boats caught in the choppy waters. Successive tall waves keep coming at the vessels, rocking them every time.
The smaller of the two boats negotiates the first two waves but is overturned by the third, the clip shows. Another clip, shared by the police, shows a crowd on the riverbank shouting that people on the boat have fallen into the river.
The incident happened around 10.20am in the Hooghly off the Dakshin Jagadishpur neighbourhood in Uluberia, around 70km from the heart of Calcutta.
An officer of Howrah rural police told Metro: “There were four men on the boat that overturned. The entire incident happened in a few minutes. When the water turned still, other boats rushed in and rescued the four. They were taken to the hospital. They are fine now.”
A river scientist said tall waves were often a result of a bore caused by a spring tide in the river.
A spring tide occurs during a new or full moon, when the sun, moon, and the earth are in a straight line. This alignment causes the greatest gravitational pull, resulting in higher high tides and lower low tides. March 29 was the new moon.