M M Jasim :
Faulty design, construction and inexperienced drivers of launches are some major reasons for the accidents these water vessels faced. The people travelling through the waterways allege launch owners often modify the original design and get approval from the Shipping Ministry.
Such a malpractice goes on unabated because of a nexus between some launch owners and the officials at the Ministry, they added.
The most alarming aspect of this is that many of the launch owners get approvals for 1-storey vehicles, but build 3/4-storey launches, instead, which put thousands of passengers at risk of fatal accident every year.
At least 4,440 people died, 550 injured and 420 remained missing in more than 550 passenger launch accidents that took place in the last 39 years, according to the Ministry and the Bangladesh Inland Water
Transport Authority (BIWTA).
In the latest launch capsize in the River Meghna in Narayanganj on March 30, 11 people were killed and several others missing.
The accidents in the last decade cost around 1,960 lives, while 176 persons went missing.
Official data show five accidents in 1977 claimed 29 lives.
A total of 127 lives were lost in 41 launch accidents in 2001, the highest causalities in a single year.
In 2003 and 1986, the number of such accidents increased. As many as 464 people died in 31 accidents in 2003 while 426 people died in only 11 launch accidents.
Experts pointed out that many of these accidents occurred either because the launches were unfit or overloaded, which collided with other vessels or structures. Although hundreds of committees were formed to probe the accidents, nobody was reported till date to have been punished.
Between January 2002 and July 2013, only five to seven probe reports were made public following some major river mishaps. Almost all the recommendations made by those committees towards putting an end to such loss of lives remain unimplemented.
Mir Tareque Ali, a Professor of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), said, “In order to avoid the design fee and the supervision fee, the launch owners put their own water crafts as well as the lives of thousands of innocent passengers in jeopardy. In many instances, the launch owners simply ignore or disregard the safety of the passenger vessel by making illegal and dangerous modifications like changing the length or breadth or height without any prior consultation with a qualified naval architect.”
“Checking the design and plan of an inland vessel is a very special type of job and only a person from naval architecture background is entitled to do this type of special task. Unfortunately, most of the personnel engaged in the design checking process are not naval architects. Consequently, flawless design of inland passenger vessels can never be achieved if this practice continues,” Professor Tareque Ali said.
General Secretary of Safe Waterway Implementation Movement Aminur Rasul Babul said due to the negligence of the Shipping Ministry the owners start their launches with faulty design and then they carry the launches overloaded. As a result, accidents continue to recur in the waterways.
He also said, “The reports of 863 probe committees, formed to investigate 535 accidents, were not made public. At the same time, the recommendations of the committees were never implemented by the government.” “In many cases, the investigations focused on wrong issues instead of the main reasons behind the accidents. Many probe bodies were more concerned about finding out a ‘culprit’ and paid no heed to identifying in measures to prevent such accidents,” Babul said.
Most cases, the passenger launches carry insufficient lifebuoys and no life jackets at all, thus leading to a higher death toll following a mishap.
The Department of Shipping, which regulates waterways transport, had also failed to check and monitor the plying of unfit and overloaded vessels due to a lack in manpower.
Acknowledging the shortage, Chief Engineer and Ship Surveyor of the Department of Shipping, Md Fakhrul Islam said that the staff crisis is indeed crippling the department’s monitoring work.
At present, only four surveyors were posted to verify fitness of the vessels registered by the department.
