No fewer than 10 people, including nine children have been said to have drowned after a boat capsized Thursday in western India, officials said, with a search on to find more of the missing.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that the incident happened in Gujarat state as students were travelling to a picnic organised by their school.
Dozens of people joined a frantic search for survivors around the lake where the boat capsized.
The victims include children aged as young as 10, along with one of their teachers, an official from Vadodara district involved in rescue operations, who did not give their name, told reporters.
The cause of the accident was not immediately clear but the official said 27 people were believed to be aboard.
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Vadodara municipal commissioner Dilip Rana confirmed the toll to newsmen but did not provide further information on the victims.
Fatal boat accidents are common on Indian waterways.
Last year, at least 22 people were killed when their double-decker tourist boat capsized in the southern state of Kerala.
Survivors of that accident told local media that many of the passengers were not wearing life jackets.
In another report, no fewer than eight passengers were confirmed dead and an estimated 100 were missing after their overloaded boat capsized in Niger State, the emergency services said Tuesday.
It is the most recent in a string of tragic boat mishaps that increasingly highlight regulatory shortcomings.
According to Ibrahim Audu, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, the boat capsized in the Niger River on Monday afternoon as the passengers were being transported from the Borgu area of Niger state to a market in the neighbouring state of Kebbi.
He stated that although the boat can accommodate 100 people, it was likely carrying a lot more people in addition to bags of grain, which made it challenging to steer when the boat started to sink.