Cyclone Ockhi horror: Fishermen getting human body parts in nets

Thiruvananthapuram: Fishermen are traumatised as decayed human body parts of cyclone Ockhi’s victims are getting entangled while they are fishing in sea waters.

The estimates suggest that over 300 fishermen did not return home after the cyclone had hit the seas.

A boat worker, Rajan from Kolachal found a rotten human body when he went for fishing during January’s first week. He had to drop the body back into the sea as he had to stay on the boat for the next four days and did not have any refrigeration facilities on board, Deccan Chronicle reported.

“That day the boat anchored at the spot without fishing. It is upsetting that the bodies were being spotted like this,” said Abdul Rahman, a boat owner from North Paravur.

Unaware of any possibility to identify the human bodies, the fishermen did not take any DNA sample from them.

“Rather than banking on the chances of extracting body parts, the government should quickly compensate the families of the missing fishermen,” said Gilbert Xavier of Poonthura.

The fishermen said that buyers might be upset as fish might contain human remains.

“Fish do eat anything edible in the sea but the proof that more bodies were still being spotted shows that pelagic (sea) fish do not prefer to eat human remains. In any case, it shouldn’t be a cause of concern for buyers because there are billions of fish in the sea,” said another fisherman.