UAV Helps Locate Bodies of Two Missing Students

With rescue teams finding it difficult to trace the bodies of the missing students of VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology, who were washed away in river Beas at Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Thursday deployed an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), also called remotely-piloted aircraft. The vehicle, pressed into service at the behest of NDMA Vice-Chairman Marri Sashidhar Reddy, sent signals to the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams indicating the presence of two bodies in the river a few kilometres from the Larji dam. The NDRF teams fished out the bodies soon after. “We have intensified the search by using a UAV that will help us locate the bodies if they are floating or stuck amidst rocks under water. Specially-designed operation applications have been installed in the UAV to locate the bodies. Even though it is very difficult to trace the bodies in the river due to the heavy flow of water, we have deployed additional teams to retrieve the bodies as soon as possible,” Reddy, who is camping at the accident spot, told Express. The two bodies have been identified as those of T Upender of Palaocha in Khammam district and G Aravind Kumar, a resident of Vanasthalipuram here. Bodies of 16 students are yet to be retrieved.

By Mouli Mareedu

moulimareedu@gmail.com