Another tragedy has struck us. This time a motorboat carrying almost 100 people capsized after being hit by an empty cargo boat in the River Dhanu in Sunamganj. 35 bodies have been recovered, as of last report; most of the victims are women and children. Regrettably, accidents involving river crafts have been on the rise in recent times.
Given the predominantly riverine terrain of the country, the primary mode of transport happens to be river crafts of various descriptions. And given too the need to travel faster, with life becoming faster, and time being at a premium for every one, manually operated boats have given way increasingly to mechanized crafts, increasing the chances of accidents that much more. It is a fact too that river travel is not so much for pleasure as compelled by the need to seek livelihood. Reportedly, most of the passengers on the ill-fated boat were workers engaged in collecting rocks from the Surma, heading home after work.
What begs the question is, given that river travel has been the primary mode of travel for many years, we had not heard of so many river accidents in the past as now. Why so?
The need to find faster means to travel has compelled people to go for improvisations. And most of the river crafts are crude mechanical contraptions without caring much about the other factors that go into constructing a proper river crafts. And these are fitted with shallow engines, those meant for irrigation. While these crafts have mushroomed all over the country, there is no monitoring, no control, no laid down standards for the boats, and the government seems to be pretty much out of the entire equation, either out of apathy or sheer helplessness.
What adds to the problem is that these boats are invariably loaded much beyond their capacity; even those crafts that are made to specifications will in most cases hit the bottom if overloaded. The situation is further compounded by the narrowing of river channels without markings, emergence of shoals and lack of night navigation facilities in these boats. These are all recipe for disaster.
We are constrained to say that there is lack of proactive response on the part of the government to ensure that such accidents are averted. Under no circumstances should a craft that does not meet the standards be allowed to take to the waters. There must also be strict load control, and the defaulters must be severely penalised. One thing that the government can certainly do is to help the local entrepreneurs to build river-worthy vessels with all the necessary safety features and navigational capability. Government's quick response is imperative if such accidents are to be prevented and precious lives saved.