Desperate attempts to stay afloat amid strong current

The sight of the drowning passengers of Pinak-6, which sank in the Padma River Monday, and the rescuers' frantic efforts to salvage the ill-fated victims of the heavily crammed launch have emerged in a new video posted on Facebook. The 3:16-minute mobile phone footage of the moments immediately after the launch was grasped by the Padma shows the victims trying to stay afloat defying the strong current. Sam Sumon, a witness who was travelling in a ferry, filmed the rescue scene and posted it on his timeline the same day. "Everything happened in front of my eyes but I couldn't do anything," he wrote with the Facebook post. Rescuers who rushed there with some speedboats were seen trying frantically to pull up the victims. The death toll reached 9 while 129 were still missing till filing of this report at 5:25pm today.