Khammam: A night-long rescue operation in Telangana ended in relief on Thursday after the fishermen and State Disaster Response Force personnel who were stranded in the flooded Bethupalli lake were brought to safety. Telangana Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy said all the fishermen and ten SDRF personnel stranded at Betupalli Cheruvu had been rescued, and he congratulated the teams that worked through the night to save them.
The scare began on Wednesday evening in Sathupalli mandal of Khammam district, where a group of fishermen had become trapped in the lake after its water level rose sharply following heavy rain linked to Cyclone Murasu. Rescue teams were sent to the spot in boats, but the operation itself ran into trouble when two boats capsized in the swollen water, leaving the rescuers stranded as well and turning a rescue mission into a second emergency.
According to officials cited in early reports, the SDRF team had reached the lake to evacuate fishermen who were stranded in Bethupalli lake, also called Bethupalli tank or Betupalli Cheruvu. The team, made up of six SDRF personnel from Kothagudem and four Fire Services personnel, set out in two boats. Reports said the team managed to rescue some of those who were trapped before the boats overturned, but the details varied in the first hours.
One account said four fishermen were rescued before the boats capsized, while another said three stranded Fire Services personnel were brought back first. What was consistent across the early reports was the central fact: around ten rescue personnel were missing after the boats capsized, and three fishermen remained stranded at that stage.
The lake had become dangerous because of the speed at which the water was rising. Local reports said water was flowing about three feet over the spillway of the tank, and that the rescue boats may have become caught in fishing nets in the strong current.
Khammam district, which borders Andhra Pradesh, had been receiving heavy rainfall under the impact of Cyclone Murasu, and the sudden rise in the tank's water level left little margin for error for boats operating in the dark and in fast-moving water.
As word of the capsizing spread, senior officials rushed to the spot. Khammam District Collector Divakara T S reached the site and supervised the search, while additional teams were called in from Bhadrachalam to join the operation. The National Disaster Response Force was also deployed, with Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay Kumar saying NDRF personnel were carrying out rescue operations on a war footing.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, who enquired about the incident, directed the District Collector to make every effort to rescue the personnel and asked Chief Secretary Sanjay Jaju to monitor the situation, according to an official release.
Through the night, rescue teams worked to locate the missing personnel. Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy said in a post on social media that the assisting teams that reached the scene had identified the possible location of the stranded personnel and expressed confidence that they would be rescued safely.
He later confirmed that the fishermen and the ten SDRF personnel had been brought to safety, thanking the rescue teams for their round-the-clock work, the officials who coordinated the effort, and local public representatives who extended support. He also said that after reports that another missing member of the team had been located, he had instructed officials to ensure that person's safe return at the earliest.
The confusion in the early hours over the exact number of people missing is a familiar feature of fast-moving flood rescues. Initial information put the figure at around ten, while some later reports said eleven rescue and Fire Services personnel, including local guides, were unaccounted for. Such differences usually reflect the difficulty of counting heads in the dark, across multiple boats and teams, before a full muster can be completed.
The minister's later statement, that the fishermen and ten SDRF personnel had been brought to safety, provided the clearest official account of the outcome, even as officials continued to account for every last member of the operation.
The incident underlines the risks faced by disaster response teams in flood conditions. SDRF personnel are trained to work in swift water, but a swollen tank or lake presents hazards that are hard to see from the surface: submerged nets, sudden currents near a spillway, floating debris, and water levels that keep rising while a rescue is under way.
When a boat capsizes, rescuers themselves need rescuing, and the operation must be rebuilt around a new priority without abandoning the people who were trapped in the first place. That is why additional teams are routinely called in, and why senior officers take direct charge at the site, so that boats, lights, ropes and medical support can be coordinated rather than improvised.
Cyclone Murasu has brought heavy rain to parts of Telangana, and Khammam was among the districts feeling its impact. When a cyclone's rain falls on catchments that feed tanks and lakes, water levels can rise far faster than residents expect, cutting off people who went out onto the water in normal conditions.
Fishermen who had entered the lake to lay nets found themselves stranded when the level rose suddenly, a sequence that shows how quickly a routine activity can become dangerous during a spell of cyclonic rain. Authorities routinely warn people to stay away from swollen water bodies during such weather, but the warning often reaches people only after they are already out on the water.
For the families of the rescue personnel, the night must have been agonising. SDRF and Fire Services staff are usually drawn from local communities, and news that their boats had capsized spread quickly through the district.
The minister's message on Thursday morning, confirming that the stranded men had been brought to safety, closed that period of uncertainty, though officials will still need to complete their formal accounting of everyone involved and check the health of those who spent hours in floodwater.
Questions will now follow about what exactly caused the boats to overturn and whether any part of the operation could have been done differently. Investigators and senior officers typically review such incidents to see whether the boats were overloaded, whether the current near the spillway was underestimated, and whether the nets in the water posed a known hazard. Those reviews matter not to assign blame in the immediate aftermath, but to make the next rescue safer.
Flood rescue work in India has grown more professional over the years, with specialised SDRF units in every state and NDRF teams that can be moved quickly to a disaster spot, yet each incident still tests equipment, training and judgement in conditions that change by the hour.
The Bethupalli rescue also shows the value of a layered response. The first team on the spot took the immediate risk. The district administration provided coordination and additional boats. The state government monitored the operation from Hyderabad. The Centre's NDRF added manpower and equipment. And local representatives helped with support on the ground. When one layer ran into trouble, the others kept the operation going through the night until everyone was accounted for.
As Telangana continues to receive rain linked to the cyclone system, officials are likely to repeat warnings against entering flooded tanks, lakes and streams, and to keep rescue teams on standby in the affected districts.
The Bethupalli episode ended without the tragedy that was feared on Wednesday evening, but it serves as a reminder that floodwater, even in a familiar local tank, can be unforgiving, and that the people who go out to save others sometimes need saving themselves.
(Reporting based on The Times of India, The New Indian Express, Telangana Today and Hyderabad Mail.)