19 believed dead and 20 missing after boat capsizes in India


At least 19 people are believed to have drowned and another 20 are missing after a boat capsized Saturday morning in India's Ganges River. The death toll is expected to continue to rise though multiple rescue teams are working at the site.
The overloaded boat was returning from a Hindu religious festival in a city called Patna in the northeast area of the country. Though the vessel was only supposed to hold a maximum of 25 people, it was carrying about 40 at the time of the accident. Boating accidents in rural India are often exacerbated by a lack of life vests.
The local state government has ordered an investigation into the incident and will make payments equivalent to about $6,400 to the next of kin of the deceased.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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