A tragic event has taken place in India. A woman was killed and dozens of people were reported missing in northeast India on Wednesday after two ferries collided on the Brahmaputra River, each carrying some 90 people, authorities said.
One of the two ferries, a wooden boat that left Nimati Ghat in the Jorhat district of Assam state, overturned in the water after the collision.
“The preliminary investigation revealed that there were between 80 and 90 people on board” the wooden boat which sank, police commissioner Jorhat Ankur Jain told AFP.
The two boats must have collided due to a communication error, he added.
Divers scoured the river in search of survivors.
On Wednesday evening, authorities announced that 45 people had been rescued but that a woman, a 28-year-old teacher, died shortly after.
The number of injured was not specified.
There were no injuries on the second ferry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured in a tweet that “all efforts were made to save the passengers”.
The level of the waters of the Brahmaputra, a powerful river which originates in the Himalayas before crossing Tibet in China then northeast India before watering Bangladesh, has risen in recent weeks to the torrential monsoon rains.