Beaches to get fluorescent boards to curb mishaps

Mumbai: Mumbai fire brigade will be putting up fluorescent boards with warnings to curb drowning-related casualties. Eight persons drowned in the city since early June, as the city witnessed heavy showers in the first two weeks of the monsoon.

The Mumbai police has started deploying police personnel along with the civic lifeguards and officers from the National Disaster Response Force team on the weekends at beaches across city.

According to the sources, there are several boards placed on the beaches like Juhu, Girgaon and Dadar, but they often fail to stop the over-excited crowd from entering the waters. In addition to this the police personnel are only armed with lathis (canes) to obstruct the people from going too close to the water bodies and risking their lives. Deployed on duty from 8 am till late at night, these police officers patrol beaches during high tide. With the upcoming introduction of the fluorescent boards, the police and lifeguards aims to garner as much attention as possible to ensure people’s safety and security.

Speaking to The Asian Age, David Neville, a lifeguard at Juhu said, “On weekends, Juhu generally witnesses huge crowd visiting the sea-fronts during afternoon and evening times. Despite knowing the danger of approaching the waters closely during high tides, people carelessly go closer towards the water. The hefty waves makes it difficult for us to rescue them, but we cannot risk their life by waiting for the water to recede.”

“We request people to be away from the sea-fronts during high tides and to immediately inform the police officials patrolling the area, if such a mishap takes place. Repeated public service announcements to be wary of the powerful waves and stay away from the seafronts during high tides are often ignored by the people,” said Manoj Kumar Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (Zone 1).

Places like Girgaon Chowpatty, Dadar Chowpatty, Marine Drive, Juhu beach, Bandra Bandstand, Carter road and Worli sea face are some of the places, where the police officers will be deployed to patrol on weekends.