KUMARAKOM (India) July 27: Around 65 people drowned when a boat packed beyond its 100-passenger capacity sank in a lake in the southern Indian coastal state of Kerala, officials said on Saturday.

A senior police official, S. Gopinath, said the tragedy happened “due to overcrowding.”

“The boat was carrying passengers three times its actual capacity,” he said, as officials speculated the ferry was carrying as many as 250 to 300 people.

So far 65 bodies have been recovered, a rescue official said.

Kerala state police chief K. J. Joseph said late on Saturday rescuers had called off the search for more survivors.

State Transport Minister K. B. Ganesh Kumar said the ferry involved in the accident belonged to the state-run Kerala Water Transport Department.

The provincial minister also said the Kerala government would soon order a full-fledged judicial investigation into the sinking, the worst recorded waterways disaster in the region.

Some 64 survivors were admitted to various hospitals, the police chief said, adding that all the victims have been identified.

Those killed included 15 women and a six-month-old infant, he said.

The accident occurred in Vembanad lake at about 5:30 am when the boat was on its way from Muhamma to the popular tourist resort of Kumarakom, in Kerala’s Kottayam district.

It sank after about 35 minutes into the journey, officials said.

“The boat tilted to a side suddenly and passengers panicked, running around,” one panic-struck survivor said.

“The passengers rushing around resulted in the driver of the boat losing control and it turned turtle within five minutes,” the survivor said, adding that the ferry was in the middle of the lake when it sank.

“Some of the passengers who jumped into the lake were rescued by fishermen returning from their morning catch,” another passenger said.

A large number of survivors were also rescued by a dredger, which was exploring for live shells in the deep lake.

The boat’s morning run to Kumarakom, where Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee spent a holiday two years ago, carries mainly fishermen headed for the market there.

But on Saturday, it was carrying more people than usual, mostly local youth on their way to a government recruitment exam, the official said.

According to P. Shankar, a Kerala government minister, said a number of those pulled out from the water were admitted in local hospitals in critical condition.

The Kerala government has announced payments of 50,000 rupees to the next of kin of those dead in the boat tragedy.

Initial rescue operations were spearheaded by local villagers, with fishermen pulling out most of the bodies and ferrying them ashore in their own fishing boats.

Indian navy divers who were rushed to the site also helped to speed up the recovery of bodies, a rescue official said.

The divers used dredges to lift the sunken boat and brought it to the banks of the lake for forensic examinations, the state police chief said.

Naval helicopters were also deployed.

A senior official in Kerala, Chandrasekharan Nair, said the administration had set up a crisis management cell to coordinate rescue work at the site.—AFP