Guwahati: The Indian Navy’s deep-sea divers, Indian Army, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams are engaged in an ongoing search-and-rescue operation to locate five members of a family who went missing after their Swift Dzire car plunged into River Dikhow in upper Assam’s Sivasagar district on September 1 in the evening.

An eight-member diving team with equipment from the Eastern Naval Command in Visakhapatnam has reached Sivasagar to help in the ongoing operation.

Apart from the Navy’s diver team, Army, SDRF and NDRF teams are engaged in the operations. The car has not been traced yet.

The incident took place at the Dikhowmukh area near Gaurisagar in the upper Assam district when the family was travelling from Guwahati to Sivasagar and they lost control of their speeding car and fell into the river.

The five missing persons are Haren Bora, his mother Phunu Bora, wife Ponou Bora and daughters Simpi Bora and Munmi Bora.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is supervising the rescue operation. He has informed the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs about the operation.

The chief minister has taken up the matter also with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Defence Ministry for help from the Indian Navy.

The State government has said it is taking all possible steps to recover the vehicle and the missing persons.

Meanwhile, two boats of Inland Water Transport (IWT) have been kept on the standby.

Though the operation started in the morning of Sunday, the search teams are yet to see success because of the strong undercurrent in the river, with mud blocking vision under the waters.

Divers are going as deep as 40 ft in some areas and a total number of 10 boats have been pressed into service.

Three teams including eight deep divers of the NDRF of strength 44, six teams including eight deep divers of the 37-member strong SDRF, one team each from Dibrugarh (with four deep divers) and Sivasagar (with three deep divers) and two teams each from Jorhat (with four deep divers) and Golaghat (with three deep divers) and one team of 14-member strong para commandos including 10 deep divers of the Army are involved in the operation. Five rescue personnel are from Civil Defence.

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