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Playfully Disastrous
In no other mode of Journey the lives are so literally put into the hands of the operator than by a country-boat apologetically fitted with a barely purring horse-power engine chugging along the captive.. rough waters within narrow sea-lane. Anyone who once put to the sea from Cox's Bazar even on board a properly powered speed boat or launch, headed for one of the islets. Maheshkhali or St. Martin’s Island or Kutubdia. would recall the terrible battering his boat had taken all the way. in and out. regardless of seasons or the inter-play of tides.
Not anymore", must have been the first words uttered by him. if he were a visitor to the place, on reaching to safety ashore. Yet. the people who inhabit that sea-board area, which happens to be configuration-wise one of the most turbulent bay zones in the whole world — being cavity-like — have to venture out to the sea with a religious regularity driven by the dictates of life and living.
That is exactly the reason why caution cannot be thrown to the winds by the private operators of river craft who by default of a public sector involvement in the area, monopolise the business there. Does the virtual absence of a small scale state sector marine' operation absolve the local authorities of their responsibility to oversee the private operations and intervene, where necessary. to stop putting so many lives at such great risk almost daily*? Quite an assortment of patently unseaworthy boats are plied, as if the incidence of death by other forms of accident was not high enough already.
The country-boat that capsized in the Kutubdia channel on Sunday morning, drowning at least 100 people from amongst a bridal party of 170 on board, bears testimony to the utter failure of the authorities to enforce minimum safety standards in the mouth of the Bay. The boat, having an outboard shallow tubewell engine, barely able to pull it along and which could accommodate at the most 70 passengers, was carrying nearly three times its capacity. Attempting to change direction, with such a heavy load, compounded by the lowest tugging power imaginable, the country-trait could only tip on one side and meet its inevitable watery grave. The boat, like perhaps many others of its kind, bore no name meaning that it plied unauthorisedly, though not obviously secretively, without having been licensed or registered at all. Reports suggested that a union parishad chairman owned and operated it refusing to be wiser from an accident which another country-boat of his own had met with, in August last, drowning 40 lives.
The all round tragedy has been made the more plaintive by the fact that the purpose of the journey was so auspicious, designed to herald a new pair of lives, and that only eight out of the 80 women and children could be rescued from the sea. But there was a streak of good luck for the rescue operation in contrast to what we have seen about the Dinar-II disaster near Chandpur. The local people and the men in their fishing boats helped save many lives, recovering dead bodies as well. That again brought to light how delayed it can get for rescue and medicare opera-, tion to reach the spot from the district headquarters which were barely 50 miles away.
Our sincerest condolences to the bereaved families whose losses are tragically so irreparable but perhaps would be only fractionally redeemed if we are able to avoid such a disaster in the future.