Vijayawada: Operations to salvage the damaged boats were going on at a brisk pace in Prakasam barrage on Thursday, with able support of expert teams from Visakhapatnam and Kakinada.The expert teams managed to cut away some parts of a boat that lay on the top of the other two entangled boats. The experts from Visakhapatnam were cutting each boat into two pieces.The Kakinada team led by Abbulu, which had successfully salvaged a private tourist boat that capsized at Katchuluru in Godavari river, will try and pull away parts of a boat that was cut into two pieces in the water, to the nearby bund.Another plan is to allow the pieces of the boat to sail downstream into the river through gates of the Prakasam barrage if the attempt to pull them to the bund fails.Each boat weighs nearly 50-60 tonnes and spreads over 60ft length, 10feet height and 15feet width. The mechanised boat has layers of iron plates on both edges and in the bottom.Sources privy to the salvage operations said the chance of leaving the boats to their fate at the barrage has been ruled out.A plan to use balloons to carry the broken parts of the boats was found to be impractical.State irrigation department’s retired EE, Krishna Rao, said, “We are adopting a strategy to cut each boat into two pieces and pull them through the water to areas upstream of the barrage, and dump these near a bund. We were able to cut one boat into two in the last two days. We would do the same to the remaining two boats. It may take a few more days to complete the exercise.”
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