Eight Pune students drown at Raigad’s Diveagar beach during coaching academy picnic
People at the Diveagar beach are seen trying to revive by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on some of the students who drowned. (Digitally enhanced screenshot of a widely circulated clip on social media.)
New Delhi: Eight teenage students from Pune district drowned off Diveagar beach in Maharashtra’s Raigad district on Wednesday, after entering the sea during a picnic organized by their coaching academy. Police said all eight bodies had been recovered, with preliminary information suggesting that the students were swept away after misjudging the water’s depth and currents.
The victims were Class 11 and 12 students of Winners’ Academy, a private coaching institute in Alandi, and had travelled to the coastal destination with fellow students and teachers. According to a district administration statement, the outing comprised 48 people – 25 boys, 17 girls and six teachers.
The incident occurred at around 5.30pm, according to NDTV’s updated account, at a beach within the jurisdiction of Dighi Coastal Police Station. The police’s initial explanation concerned the depth and movement of the water, rather than an established finding about the precise circumstances in which the eight students drowned.
Local residents and employees of Mahakali Water Sports began rescue efforts after the students got into difficulty, Loksatta reported. The rescuers brought all eight bodies out of the sea, after which they were taken to the primary health centre at Borli Panchatan.
According to some media reports, the victims have been identified as Tanmay Dattatray Vahile, Sumit Bharat Ahire, Pranav Ramdas Bansode and Kaivalya Satish Wasankar. The other four were Rajveer Yuvraj Vahile, Yash Kiran Wankhede, Soham Tukaram Bhandwalkar and Kaustubh Sandeep Daund.
Police and local authorities remained at the site to complete the legal and administrative procedures following the recovery of the bodies. The available accounts did not establish whether the students had been warned against entering the water or what supervision arrangements were in place when they did so.
The deaths have again brought attention to the risks surrounding group excursions to Maharashtra’s coastal destinations. However, the presence of accompanying teachers does not, by itself, establish negligence, and the preliminary police account should not be treated as a final determination of responsibility.
Diveagar lies in Shrivardhan taluka on Raigad’s Konkan coast and is an established tourist destination. The Konkan divisional commissioner’s website notes that it attracts substantial tourist crowds, particularly during winter, while Maharashtra’s tourism department lists it among the district’s beach destinations.
Raigad has witnessed a comparable tragedy involving students from Pune before: on February 1 this year, 14 students of Abeda Inamdar College drowned during an excursion to Murud beach. The final body was recovered the following morning, bringing the death toll to 14.
Reporting after that incident documented questions over lifeguard deployment, warning signs and the demarcation of dangerous swimming areas. Those findings concerned Murud in 2016 and cannot be assumed to describe the arrangements at Diveagar when Thursday’s incident occurred.
The broader danger is that conditions suitable for a beach visit may still be unsafe for entering the sea. The US National Weather Service’s beach safety guidance cautions that good weather does not necessarily make swimming, or even playing in shallow water, safe.
One coastal hazard is a rip current – a narrow, fast-moving flow that carries water away from the shore and can sweep swimmers beyond the breaking waves. Although such currents are a recognized cause of beach emergencies, the reports available on Thursday evening did not establish that a rip current specifically caused the Diveagar deaths.
