According to authorities, a boat carrying more than twenty passengers—even though it was only designed to hold sixteen—capsized in a lake on Thursday in India, killing at least fifteen students and a teacher.
According to The Indian Express, the incident occurred late in the afternoon at Harni Lake in Vadodara during a picnic that a private school had arranged.
“It is really tragic that children drowned in Vadodara’s Harni Lake after a boat overturned. Indian chief minister Bhupendra Patel wrote on X, “I pray for the peace of the souls of the innocent children who lost their lives.”
When the boat sank, eleven students were saved, and Vadodara fire officer Jitu Parmar told The Associated Press that rescuers were still looking for a missing person. The accident’s cause is being looked into.
The incident claimed the lives of 15 students and 1 teacher, according to the AP. Two girls and a boy, both of whom were fifteen, were among the victims, a local hospital confirmed to The Indian Express.
Sheetal Mistry, a representative of the local government, told the newspaper that the kids arrived at the lake at 4:30 p.m. and boarded the boat in the lake zone with the help of their teachers. “The children were wearing life jackets but the reports indicate that 24 persons were made to sit in one boat which otherwise has a capacity to carry just 16 passengers.”
