MUMBAI – The Anant Chaturdashi festival, which is the last day of the 11-day Ganesh holiday, ended on Sunday with a number of sad events throughout Maharashtra. Officials say that at least nine people have drowned and twelve others are still missing in different accidents tied to idol immersion ceremonies. People in Pune, Thane, Nanded, Nashik, Jalgaon, Washim, Palghar, and Amravati all reported these catastrophes.
In Pune area, three different bodies of water took five people away in three different events. Three bodies have been found, but the search for others is still going on. near the same way, three persons were swept away by a river near Nanded. One was saved, while the other two are still missing. Five individuals were carried away in Nashik, and two dead have been found. In separate events in Jalgaon and Thane, three more persons were also swept away. One person drowned in each of Washim and Amravati, and their remains were found.
The sad events happened while there were extended and big festivities going on. Some immersion processions in Mumbai and Pune lasted more than 24 hours. The immersion of the Lalbaugcha Raja, Mumbai’s most famous idol, took a lot longer than planned. Because of a high tide and problems with the mechanized raft, officials reported the immersion was pushed back by more than 12 hours. The idol was ultimately put in the Arabian Sea at Girgaon Chowpatty at about 9:15 p.m. on Sunday, more than 32 hours after the procession started.
A man died and five other people were hurt after they were electrocuted in Mumbai, in addition to the water-related events. The accident happened on Khairani Road in the Sakinaka district when a Ganesh statue hit a dangling electric line during the procession.
Even with the problems, there were a lot of immersions during the celebrations. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that 197,114 Ganesh idols were immersed in Mumbai during the 11-day celebration. There were 181,375 family idols, 10,148 public mandal idols, and 5,591 idols of Gauri and Hartalika in this total. The BMC has also started a big cleaning effort on the city’s beaches and other immersion locations. So far, they have collected more than 508 tons of nirmalya (floral offerings) from natural water bodies and 290 artificial ponds.
In areas of Maharashtra, it has been raining nonstop, thus state disaster response teams and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been sent to help with search and rescue operations.