8 Students From Pune Drown at Diveagar Beach in Raigad During Coaching Class Trip

Rescue teams recover all 8 bodies after Diveagar beach tragedy

October 1, 2026

Incident adds to a recurring pattern of student drowning tragedies along Maharashtra's coastline

Tragedy at Diveagar: 8 Teen Students Swept Away by Strong Currents

Eight 16-year-old students from Pune drowned at Diveagar beach in Maharashtra’s Raigad district on Thursday after being swept away by strong sea currents during a coaching class excursion, police said. All eight bodies have since been recovered.

The students were part of a 48-member group — comprising 25 boys, 17 girls and six teachers, according to one police account, though other reports put the total group size at 42 students and six teachers — from Winners’ Academy, a private coaching institute for Classes 11 and 12 based in Alandi, around 170 km from the beach. The group had arrived at Diveagar for a picnic at around 5:30 pm when eight students ventured into the sea and were pulled under by strong currents after misjudging the water’s depth and conditions.

Rescue effort

Bhau Salunkhe, who runs a local water sports operation at Diveagar, launched an immediate rescue effort with his team upon learning of the incident. Local residents and administration personnel joined the search, which recovered the students’ bodies from the sea over the following hours. The incident falls under the jurisdiction of the Dighi Coastal Police Station, which is investigating the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.

The identities of the deceased students have not yet been officially released at the time of this report.

Part of a recurring pattern along Maharashtra’s coast

Thursday’s tragedy is the latest in a series of drowning incidents involving student groups at Maharashtra’s beaches, where powerful, unpredictable sea currents have repeatedly caught swimmers off guard. In 2017, eight engineering students from a Karnataka college drowned at Vayri beach near Malwan in Sindhudurg district under similar circumstances, after ignoring local warnings about strong currents, and 13 Pune college students had drowned off Murud beach the year before that. Maharashtra’s coastline, while a popular draw for school and college trips, has repeatedly proven hazardous for unsupervised swimming due to sudden rip currents and steep undersea drop-offs that are not always visible from the shore.

The search and formal investigation into Thursday’s incident remain ongoing.

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