<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Four people died and at least 19 more were missing after a boat ferrying them across a swollen river capsized in India-held Kashmir on Tuesday, officials said.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rescuers in rubber boats joined by marine commandos were scrambling to find survivors as hundreds of worried and mourning family members gathered at the riverbanks after the accident.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The missing included several children who had been on their way to school when the boat overturned in the Jhelum river in the city of Srinagar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We have four dead from the tragedy,” Muzaffar Zargar, the superintendent for the city’s main hospital, told reporters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Three others were being treated, he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At least 26 people were on the boat when it capsized, a top official in occupied Kashmir told AFP on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorised to speak to media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Days of rain across the occupied valley had swelled the river.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The small vessel had no motor, but its crew propelled it between the riverbanks by pulling a rope fixed at both ends.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Witnesses said the rope snapped with the force of the fast-flowing water, crashing against a pillar of a partially built footbridge nearby.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I am deeply grieved by the loss of lives due to a boat accident in Srinagar,” Kashmir’s top political official Manoj Sinha said in a post on social media platform X.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“My thoughts are with the bereaved families,” he said, adding that “all possible help” was being provided to relatives of those who died.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many office workers and schoolchildren take a boat across the river in the morning to avoid road traffic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Accidents are common on the treacherous roads of the mountainous region but passenger boat disasters are rare. - AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/fas</div>