Chennai, May 23 (PTI) Immediate steps should be taken to rescue 16 fishermen from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal who went missing following cyclone Tauktae, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Sunday requested the Centre.

While 12 of them belonged to Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari district, four were from West Bengal and they had set sail for fishing on May 5 in a Kerala registered vessel, he said.

They went to the Mangalore coastline in Karnataka from the Beypore fishing harbour, off Kozhikode in Kerala, Stalin said in a letter to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

Following the storm's landfall and on receipt of information that the 16 fishermen 'could not be contacted and were missing,' the Coast Guard authorities were alerted and a search mission was launched it was on.

However, since there was no information on them yet, it has caused grief among their families and the fishing community.

Hence, immediate steps should be taken to locate and rescue them, the CM urged.

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