The authorities on Monday called off search operation to trace sunken passenger launch Pinak-6 that sank in Padma water near Mawa Launch Ghat seven days ago on August 4, leaving a number of questions unanswered and sending the missing passengers to oblivion.
The operation to salvage sunken launch ‘Pinak-6’ was postponed citing rough weather.
While announcing the postponement of the rescue operation in a press briefing at Mawa’s Padma Bridge Rest House, Deputy Commissioner of Munshiganj Saiful Hasan Badal also changed the number of missing passengers to double digit from triple digit a day before, reporters covering the event said.
According to him, 61 people are now missing, which was 122 on Saturday as per his previous statement. He claimed the latest figures ‘authentic’.
As per the latest official figures, 46 bodies of the victims have been found so far of which 28 of the recovered bodies are identified and 18 are buried unidentified, the Deputy Commissioner said. Though the rescue operation was called off officially, the authorities decided to keep a rescue vessel, either Nirvik or Rustom, on standby and it would patrol different parts of the river. However, local efforts will continue in search for the victims who the authorities assume are no more alive.
“We have decided to call off the operation considering the situations including bad weather. We could not locate the sunken launch as yet,” Deputy Commissioner of Munshiganj Saiful Hasan Badal said.
“It is difficult for the divers to locate any object or the launch in the river due to the strong current,” The Deputy Commissioner (DC) said.
He said, the meteorological department has asked the maritime ports to hoist signal No. 3 due to the bad weather, which is one of the reasons to call off the operation.
Six vessels from the BIWTA, Coast Guard, the Navy and Fire Service conducted an intensive search operation in around 50 square kilometres area, but could not find anything, DC Hasan said. “As there is no possibility of getting anything from the 50 square kilometres area, we have decided to withdraw the agencies after consulting with the Shipping Minister and experts,” he said. Rescuers found a metallic object in the river that was suspected to be of the sunken Pinak-6, but yet to identify whether it was of the sunken launch, he told reporters.
A survey vessel Kandari-2 from its side-scan sonar picked up signals of the “metallic object” on Saturday.
A group of locals on Saturday began searching the doomed launch in the river Padma and claimed to have “detected an object” around a kilometre off the Pinak-6 capsize site. They started on two boats from the accident spot around 11:00pm and moved downstream.
The object was detected around 4:00pm Saturday during a second search.
“This could be Pinak-6,” Hasan told earlier on Saturday evening. Around 15 people, who work for a mechanical parts shop at Mawa, tied some weight to the middle of a rope and sank it deep into the river to be dragged with the ends of the rope in two boats.
Meanwhile, a seven-member probe committee, formed by the shipping ministry, will hear testimonies of survivors and witnesses at the Padma Bridge Rest House today.
However, authorities are yet to fix the exact number of passengers on board of the ill-fated Pinak-6.
The control room, set up after the disaster at Mawa, also does not have the count of survivors of the launch mishap. Different officials have been giving different figures about the number of missing passengers at different times.
According to unofficial estimates, the ferry was carrying over 300 passengers.
On August 4 evening, after Pinak-6 capsized, Louhajang police OC Tofazzal Hossain told reporters that the launch, which had a capacity to carry 120 to 150 passengers at a time, was carrying almost 350 people.
He had also said 110 people were rescued immediately after the passenger ferry went down, close to the figure given by the Munshiganj DC the same day. A day after the capsize on Tuesday, the Louhajang OC said that 169 persons were missing.
But the same day Munshiganj’s Deputy Commissioner (DC) Saiful Hasan informed the media that they had prepared a list of 127 missing persons based on complaints of the victims’ relatives.
On Wednesday evening, DC Hasan said 124 persons were missing, but the count then was put at 134 on Thursday and 126 on Friday.
The list with the authorities on Saturday showed 122 missing people, which was almost halved down in the night to 67.
The DC said, “Several names were listed more than once in that. We had prepared the updated list by contacting relatives. This one is authentic.”
Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan said Pinak-6 had taken on board over 100 extra passengers at a terminal halfway to Mawa from Kewrakandi.
“We have found that the launch had around 170 people when it started from Kewrakandi. But it took on board more than 100 passengers at the Katthalbarhi launch terminal,” he told reporters after visiting the accident site in the Padma River at Mawa last Tuesday.
“If it had come to Mawa directly, it would not have capsized. Overloading of passengers is the main reason for this disaster,” he added.
Taking the Minister’s statement into account, the launch was carrying over 250 people.
But if one adds the official figures of 110 survivors, 46 body recoveries and 61 missing persons, it comes to 215 passengers-nowhere near the figures used by either the rescuers or the survivors and even the Minister.
Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan, however, could not be reached after repeated attempts last evening to ascertain the fate of the missing passengers and about the compensation to the families of the victims.
