Launch tragedy again

On the night of March 12, M.V.Shariatpur-1, an inland passenger launch, on her way to Dhaka from Sariatpur, capsized and sank in the Meghna river near Gazipur, Munshiganj with more than 300 passengers on board. As reported in the media, 145 bodies, most of them found trapped inside the launch, have so far been recovered and some are still missing.
The news is shocking. The number lost of lives is colossal. Many have lost several members of their family.
We have no words to condole the death. We can only pray for the eternal peace of the departed souls and wish that God will give the bereaved families strength and courage to bear the loss.
Thanks to the stringent rules and regulations, adopted through different conventions and widely accepted by the international community, in relation to design, construction and operation of ships that sea transport is today considered to be safer than any other mode of transport. River transport is considered to be the safest.
It does not mean that marine casualty is a phenomenon which is totally unheard of at international level. It does take place at times. Ships do meet with accidents like collision, fire or leakage at sea, leading to abandonment. They can capsize and sink when they are caught in a severe storm or are involved in a deadly collision.
But loss of life in most, if not in all, such cases has been very minimal. This has become possible because of very high standards of operational and safety rules and rescue procedures that the ship owners are compelled to follow.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Bangladesh inland water transport system. Its casualty record in terms of both accidents and loss of life is very high.
Take the case of M.V. Shariatpur. The vessel collided with and unknown cargo boat in the dead of night and capsized. More than half the passengers lost their lives.
The accident was on a river, not at sea. The weather was fine. The river was smooth. The shore was not far off. Loss of life of that magnitude in a marine casualty in such weather and river conditions is unthinkable.
The government has ordered an inquiry into the incident to find out the causes and the persons responsible for the incident. What is the use of these inquiries?
M.V. Shariatpur is not the lone case to take such a heavy toll of human lives. There were M.V Nasrin, M.V Maharaj, M.V Mitali, M.V. Rajhanshi, M.V. Prince of Patuakhali and so many others. Each of them went down to the river-bed, taking toll of human lives in the hundreds. Each of them caught the headlines of our daily newspapers as national tragedies.
The government had initiated inquiries into those tragedies as well. What was the outcome? According to a report recently published in a national daily, there have been 410 marine accidents on the Bangladesh inland waterways in the last 35 years, and more than 5,000 people died in those accidents
No one received any punishment worth mentioning, nor were any tangible measures taken by any government in the light of those reports or other information to help reduce such tragedies.
No inquiry is required to figure out the causes of launch disasters in Bangladesh. They are more or less known to the public. I, as a seafarer with more than 20 years experience of working on the high seas and in Bangladesh inland waterways, repeat what I wrote in my article titled "Launch tragedy" (The Daily Star, Feb 25, 2009).
"The reasons for these accidents are: major faults in design and construction, structural weakness, lack of adequate safety measures, absence of qualified crew, weaknesses in inspection procedures, obtaining fitness certificate through unfair means, overloading, disregard for weather forecast and negligence in duty on the part of both the vessel's crew and the controlling authority."
According to a survey carried out by the department of shipping some years ago, about 40% of the motor launches in the private sector are unfit for plying and almost as many required major modification. Because of use of substandard materials and indifference to construction rules, these vessels are structurally weak and do not comply with even minimum stability criteria.
I don't think the situation has changed much in all these years. If it had, we would not have witnessed the shocking incident of M.V Shariatpur-1 taking the lives of so many people. If the vessel had been built in accordance with even the minimum requirement of ship building and had adequate numbers of life saving appliances -- such as life jackets, lifebuoys, life rafts, rubber dingy, etc. -- the loss life would have been minimal.

The writer is a retired merchant navy officer.
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