All the six bodies of the persons who drowned in a boat capsize in the Buriganga River have been recovered. With the discovery of these bodies, the four-day wait with bated breath by their relatives and near and dear ones came to an end. The ill-fated drowning victims, residents of Keraniganj were rushing by a small boat to board a Shariatpur-bound motor launch at the Sadarghat terminal. It was not too far from their place of residence.
With the river beside Dhaka filled with rickety engine boats and trawlers, people in the nearby areas became all but oblivious to the presence of country boats on the river. But they are very much present there, with the majority engaged in ferrying people between the city and the southern bank in Keraniganj. Their ubiquitous presence remains dwarfed by the countless number of massive two to three-storey launches, barges and other types of vessels. Country boats for ferrying passengers have been a usual spectacle on the Buriganga for nearly a century. In the olden days, with steamers and motor-launches yet to be a common scenario, the sinking of country boats in storms did take place occasionally. Loss of lives every year in these mishaps would be regarded as a regular phenomenon. The start of the plying of mechanised vessels did not make any difference. Rather the incidence of collision between manually driven goods-carrying and ferry boats and metal-bodied steamers marked a rise. But yet the extent to which it rose was negligible.
The scenario has deteriorated in the recent decades, with abrupt increase in the population of both the capital and Keraniganj on the other side of the river. Keraniganj has lately turned into a commercial hub, with hundreds of informal and small-scale apparel factories dotting the area. The region has long been known for its dockyards. With these commercial activities going on in full swing, people in droves rushed to the area to purchase landed plots and reside there. Eventually Keraniganj and the adjoining areas in combination have emerged as a satellite town. What invariably followed was the ever-increasing load of the ferrying passengers being coped with river-crossing boats. They included both the traditional ones and the mechanised boats. Like elsewhere in the country, the so-called engine boats of the Buriganga emerged highly vulnerable as they were plagued with lots of mechanical flaws. Moreover, steering of these boats by a lone driver would quite often lead to both minor and fatal accidents.
The fact that mishaps involving the Buriganga country boats ferrying passengers have assumed dreadful proportions can in no way be undermined. Minor accidents of boat sinking are a common occurrence in the busy river. A motor launch speeding past a passenger-filled boat and slightly colliding with it is a day-to-day scene. Many adult male passengers can manage to swim ashore or to the nearby boats. At the same time, the rescue of female passengers and minors by daredevil males prompts a mishap and its impact to end without fatality. Everyone is not this lucky. Not all boat accidents can be dealt with so easily. Terrible boat sinking in the Buriganga has been on the rise in the recent times. Hardly does a year pass in which several accidents do not occur.
What troubles the waterway accident prevention and awareness-building groups is the blasé attitude of the agencies responsible for monitoring the chaotic situation. It makes many feel upbeat that the government agencies have taken the matter seriously. At present there are several ferry-boat routes on the Buriganga. After the recent accident, they have swung into action in earnest. From now on, the country boats will be allowed to operate on a single designated route. Hopefully, it will cut the drowning cases remarkably.
