GALLE (Kashmir English): A suspected Indian Navy submarine has struck an Iranian warship, IRIS Dena, off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 32.
According to the Sri Lankan officials, they had rescued 32 people who were on board and recovered several bodies from the island’s territorial waters. The warship went down about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the island.
Sri Lankan Foreign minister Vijitha Herath told parliament that the ship, identified as IRIS Dena, had sunk, adding that the injured sailors were taken to a hospital.
Herath said two Sri Lankan navy vessels and an aircraft were deployed for the rescue operation, but did not say what caused the Iranian warship to sink.
Sri Lanka’s defence ministry said it was searching for the missing person of the 180-crew frigate.
“We are keeping up a search, but we don’t know yet what happened to the rest of the crew,” an official told AFP, dimming prospects for finding any more survivors.
According to Reuters, a Sri Lankan navy spokesman Buddhika Sampath said 32 people injured in the incident had been rescued in line with our maritime obligations. They are under treatment at a state-run hospital in the southern port city of Galle.
We responded to the distress call from an Iranian ship, as this is within our search and rescue area in the Indian Ocean, the spokesman said.
Sri Lankan forces were focused on saving lives on the Iranian ship and will investigate the cause of the incident later, he said. Sri Lankan forces had also not observed any other ship or aircraft in the area of the incident, Reuters reported quoting Navy spokesperson as saying.
“We are hopeful we can rescue more people and will continue (operations) until we are sure,” he stated.
