Odisha’s Siddharth Meher Among 6 Indian Sailors Missing In Explosion Off Russia Coast

Sambalpur: Siddharth Meher, a native of Sambalpur, is among the six India sailors, who went missing in gas tanker explosion in Kerch Strait separating Crimea from Russia on January 21.

Eleven persons, six among them Indians, had died in the incident that took place off Russia’s territorial waters. The two vessels flying Tanzanian flags had crew members of Indian, Turkish and Libyan origin. One of them was a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier and another one was a tanker. The fire broke out as the two ships were transferring fuel from one to the other, according to media reports.

An alumnus of Chennai-based Indian Maritime University in Nautical Science, Siddharth was posted in Turkey after joining a Mumbai-based Nimbus Maritime Services Pvt Ltd. He is the only son of Satya Narayan Meher, the Regional Manager of PPL in Sambalpur, and Gitanjali Meher.

In his last Facebook public post, he had wished his parents on their wedding anniversary in December.

The other missing Indian sailors are Neeraj Singh, Sebastian Britto Breezlin Sahayaraj, Rushikesh Raju Sakpal, Akshay Baban Jadhav and Anandasekar Avinash.

The search operation was resumed on Wednesday after the Russian authorities rescued four Indian sailors — Harish Jogi, Sachin Singh, Ashish Ashok Nair and Kamleshbhai Gopalbhai Tandel.

The operation to trace the missing Indian sailors is underway and the Indian embassy in Moscow is in constant touch with the Russian authorities, the sources said.