A miraculous rescue!

After being afloat for four days in the Bay, an Indian fisherman was rescued by a Bangladeshi cargo vessel on Wednesday.

Rabindranath Das, 25, had been afloat with the help of a piece of bamboo and jerrycans tied together.

“All the time while trying to survive amid heavy waves I kept praying but saw no ship or trawler around. Once I started losing my hope and then out of nowhere, I found a life jacket thrown by the crew of this ship and I got a second life,” he narrated his ordeal in Chattogram yesterday afternoon.

Talking to reporters, Das, son of Madhu Mandal Das of Narayanpur village in South 24 Parganas’ Kakdwip, said he, along with 14 others, left Kedua in fishing trawler FV Nayan-1 on the night of July 5 and was caught up in heavy storm the following morning. The trawler capsized.

He added that they all managed to keep afloat holding a bamboo that had 14 jerrycans tied to it for two or three days. But 13 of them was either washed away or had died one after another.

“I held my nephew Swapan until Wednesday morning but he was washed away only three hours before I was rescued by the crew of MV Jawad.” Das could not hold back his tears.

The vessel, carrying 52,000 tonnes of cement clinker, arrived at the outer anchorage of Chattogram Port yesterday morning and later the fisherman was brought to Marine Academy jetty by a lighter vessel.

He was handed over to Patenga Police Station after health check-up. He would be sent to India after completing required procedures, said Meherul Karim, chief operating officer of KSRM Group that owns the vessel.

MV Jawad was on its way to Chattogram Port from Dhamra Port in India. The captain spotted the fisherman floating around 50 nautical miles off Kutubdia around 11:00am on Wednesday, Meherul added.

Captain SM Nasiruddin said, “The man had nothing but shorts on. His skin was completely pale bearing marks of fish bites.”