KARACHI, June 26: Several fishing vessels, which ventured out into the sea before a cyclone warning had been issued by the Met Office, were rescued on Tuesday.

However, an official of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) said 18 fishing boats manned by 264 people were still unaccounted for. The boats had set out on different days before the cyclone alert. PFF President Mohammad Ali Shah said that radio sets were the only source of information for fishermen, but while fishing in creeks they tended to ignore warnings with most of them thinking that cyclones posed no great threat to them.

Answering a question about the 18 boats described by the PFF as missing, Pakistan Navy spokesman Lt Cdr Salman said they had no information about small fishing vessels because they had carried out a rescue operation at high seas on information provided by the Karachi Port Trust (KPT).

He told Dawn that since Tuesday morning navy’s ships and helicopters had rescued about 100 people from vessels caught in the storm.

“Twelve crewmembers of fishing vessel Al Tariq were rescued by the PNS Al Tariq while the Sea King helicopter was employed to rescue seven crewmembers of vessel Sumbal Sultan,” he said.

A third vessel Al Daulat with a crew of 17 was being towed into the Karachi harbour by a navy vessel.

Lady Hamad, a merchant vessel stranded at around 100 nautical miles south of Karachi was located by the Atlantic aircraft of the navy and a vessel was employed to rescue 56 members of the crew, Lt Commander Salman said. Another merchant vessel, Al Picasso, regained its self-propelling capability, the spokesman said, adding that eight people stranded in Sonmiani Bay had been rescued by a helicopter.

On Tuesday morning, 12 crewmembers of fishing vessel Gulzar-i-Madina were rescued by the Maritime Security Agency while another crew was missing. The vessel had capsized near Kainer Creek, PFF’s Mr Shah said.

The missing boats listed by the PFFF are Khan Mir, Noorani, Rahim Dad, Dirya Doulat, Jane Ya Ali, Al-Khuda, Brother 1, Rab Rakha, Jillani, Marwat, Dil Dirya, Ghulam, Imran, Al Javed, Al Shori, Al Maki, Chaudhry and Maula Madad. Such boats carry an average of 12 to 15 crewmembers and, therefore, over 264 crewmembers are presumed to be missing.

Another PFF official said that gusty winds had damaged hundreds of fishing boats anchored at Ibrahim Hydri and Sonra Point.