Boy swept away in Koel river

Rourkela: Two boys were rescued and one was still missing after they were swept away in Koel river in Sundargarh district on Sunday, police said.

The incident took place near Rourkela between noon and 1 pm when four school students went to the river to bathe. Locals responded when one of the boys, who was standing on the riverbank, raised an alarm. They managed to save two boys, but another, identified as Sarthak Badaik, slipped into the strong currents and could not be retrieved, police added.

Fire Service and Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) teams arrived shortly after the incident and launched a rescue operation. Equipped with scuba divers and rubber boats, they began searching for the missing boy.

A member of ODRAF said, “The scuba divers are specially trained for this kind of search and rescue operations. The search would continue until the boy was found.”