Deaths in Bangladesh ferries crash
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BARISAL, Bangladesh (Reuters) -- Two ferries carrying hundreds of passengers have collided in a river in southern Bangladesh, killing nearly a dozen people, with more feared still trapped or dead, police and officials said.
One survivor spoke of thick fog at the time of the accident early morning Thursday.
"Many were asleep but suddenly woke up hearing a big bang. I rushed to one side of the deck and found a bigger vessel tucked into ours. Amid cries for help I frantically looked for my sister and her family," survivor Alauddin Rari, 40, said.
The ferries were packed with people returning to work, along with their families, after a three-day holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, reporters said.
Police and reporters said each vessel was carrying about 500 people and both remained afloat after the collision, which occurred nearly 280 km (175 miles) south of the capital Dhaka.
"We are getting conflicting reports from the scene," said a river traffic official in Dhaka. "Some say 12 bodies have been found, some saying eight or 11," he told Reuters.
A police officer, speaking from the coastal town of Barisal near the accident site, said: "We have recovered five bodies, and rescued nearly 80 injured people, but many could be dead or alive still trapped inside the vessels."
Rescuers rushed to the scene and pulled many survivors out of water, but the exact number of people on board the vessels was not known.
Both the ferries were damaged, with one badly caved in, police said.
Survivor Rari said his sister's husband and her three children died in the collision.
"I survived miraculously but my sister Anufa Begum was seriously injured," said Rari attending his sister at Barisal Medical College Hospital.
'Many injured'
"She was moved to the hospital quickly but fell unconscious after hearing her husband and children had been lost."
"Visibility was poor with thick fog covering everything at the time of the accident," Rari said.
Many people were injured, some seriously, he added.
Reporters said the vessels collided in the Meghna river as they were sailing between Dhaka and Barisal. One of them, the M.V. Asha Jaoa, was headed for coastal destinations while the other, the M.V. Sattar Khan, was coming to Dhaka.
They said many passengers could have swum to safety as the river channel was not very wide at the scene of the accident.
Ferry accidents occur often in Bangladesh and industry experts say only about 8,000 of the 20,000 ferries that ply the country's extensive waterways are registered. Just 800 had fitness certificates by last July.
In one of the worst recent disasters, about 400 people drowned last July when a whirlpool swallowed the M.V. Nasreen, a triple-decker ferry, at a confluence of rivers near Chandpur, 170 km (106 miles) southeast of Dhaka. About 600 people were on the ferry, which had been licensed to carry just 300.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
