20 rescued from ship off Maharashtra coast (Second lead, changing dateline)

Indian Navy and Coast Guard on Monday rescued 20 crew members from a cargo vessel which was tilting dangerously 25 nautical miles off the Palghar coast in north-west Maharashtra.

Till late evening, the 7,000-tonne Indian flag carrier M.V. Jindal Kamakshi, was tilting heavily, leading to fears that it may sink in the inclement weather and cause oil pollution in the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Arabian Sea, around 100 km north of Mumbai.

The vessel was moving from Mundra Port in Gujarat to Kochi in Kerala and was carrying general cargo, officials said here on Monday evening.

It started tilting around 10 p.m. on Sunday and the ship's captain sent out an SOS an hour later to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Committee.

"Despite strong winds, heavy rains and poor visibility, the Indian Navy deployed a Seaking helicopter around 00.15 a.m. on Monday to assess the situation," an official spokesperson told media persons.

The chopper carried out a visual assessment around the vessel before returning to Mumbai, from where destroyer INS Mumbai set sail at 2 a.m.

Around 7 a.m., the navy evacuated 19 crew members, who were airlifted and then taken to Mumbai by INS Shikra. One more crew was picked up by a second naval helicopter.

The cause of the tilting is not yet clear, though the crew attempted to rectify it by employing the counter-ballast technique.