RESCUERS have been able to recover 27 bodies from the sunken launch ML Oishi, which had sunken in Sandhya river in Barisal on Wednesday. It was an unexpected incident on Uzirpur-Banaaripara route when the rush of Eid-ul-Azha passed almost without major accidents in river routes this year. The fatal incident resulted from sheer neglect of the authorities concerned.
As it appears the launch was rather a trawler and operating without route permit and fitness certificate making it clear that BIWTA and local authorities were to be blamed for the accident. If it were not operating, the accident also would not have happened. The incident has also raised point about the safety of launch ghats or boarding points in the riverbanks. The incident did not happen in mid river and deep water and yet so many lives were lost. It is clear that the launch called on a point at Masjidbari ghat, which is not a designated loading unloading point. It was a rainy day, weather was bad and river current was strong. When the launch hit the riverbank a large chunk of soil collapsed and fell on the front side of the launch to turn it upside down. Panicked
passengers, about 70 to 80 in some estimate attempted to jump out and fell under the launch when so many people including women and children died.
In our view the entire episode took place because of the apathy of the concerned authorities to monitor river routes and make sure unfit vessels are not playing. BIWTA officials’ claim sounded empty when they said they had written to local administration before the Eid festival to make sure no unfit vessel or one having no route permit should be allowed to carry passengers in the river routes. But our point is that writing is not enough; the responsibility means ensuring the compliance of instruction with its own people supervising the river routes with the help of the local administration.
It appears that the riverbanks where launches stop are most vulnerable to erosion and the local administration also can’t escape the responsibility. If they allow launch stoppage at some point, it must have inbuilt boarding overhead and the ground stabilized with concrete safety wall. The incident shows that no such supervision and regulation is at work. It amounts to crime when so many lives were lost in absence of such safety measures locally.
As usual a nine-member committee headed by additional deputy commissioner of Barisal has been set up to investigate the incident; but our point is that such probe committee is irrelevant when many such committees made reports in the past and they went unheeded. We don’t know what role the government has to play to make water ways safe except paying victims’ families for burial. Why it can’t stop plying unfit vessels is the big question.
