Two Army soldiers remain missing in the Yamuna after a boat capsized during a Joint Watermanship Training exercise at Hathnikund Barrage in Haryana's Yamunanagar district, the Army said.

The Army issued a statement on the incident, which took place on 1 September during the exercise at the barrage.

Hathnikund Barrage soldiers missing after boat capsizes

Two members of the crew are presently missing, as per the Army's statement, which did not disclose the total number of personnel aboard or name those still unaccounted for.

Joint Watermanship Training of this kind typically covers boat handling, rowing and swift water rescue drills, and is conducted at barrages and canal stretches that offer a mix of open water and fast, channelled current.

How the boat came to capsize

The Army said the boat was moving through open water near Hathnikund Barrage as part of the exercise when it was caught in a strong current pushing it toward the downstream side. Teams on site made swift efforts to retrieve the vessel before it reached the more hazardous water close to the barrage's sluice gates.

The retrieval attempt did not succeed. The boat got stuck in strong eddies forming around the gates and capsized there, sweeping the crew away into the fast current below, the Army said. Two of them are yet to be located, and the search for them was continuing.

Full scale search and rescue effort under way

A full scale search and rescue mission involving the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, local police and the civil administration is under way, the Army said, with all available resources being employed to locate and recover the missing soldiers.

As per media reports, a police team from the Pratap Nagar police station reached the site soon after the incident was reported and joined the search. Rohtas Kumar, Station House Officer at Pratap Nagar police station, said irrigation authorities had reduced the canal's water flow at the Army's request, and that the district administration had been asked to send a National Disaster Response Force team to assist.

Canal discharge reduced to aid the search

The Irrigation and Water Resources Department reduced the release of water from Hathnikund Barrage into the Western Yamuna Canal to assist the search, as per media reports. Army divers were also deployed at the site, and the capsized boat was recovered after a prolonged effort.

A frequent site for river training

Hathnikund Barrage sits on the Yamuna near the Haryana Himachal Pradesh border and regulates the river's discharge into the Western Yamuna Canal and the Eastern Yamuna Canal. A discharge above 2.5 lakh cusecs is classified by irrigation officials as high flood, a threshold the river has crossed repeatedly this monsoon, and the gates and canal off take give the site a changing current that has made it a regular venue for water borne training.

The Army has operated in strong river currents in disaster relief settings before this year. In Jammu and Kashmir, the White Knight Corps carried out a rescue of villagers stranded by a flash flood in Rajouri, an operation that also involved troops working against a fast moving current. Elsewhere, Army columns used boats to move people out of flooded villages during Operation Jal Rahat in Assam.

The Army had not disclosed the identities of the two missing soldiers by the time of this report, and the search and rescue mission was continuing.