Vessel accidents continued to take lives of passengers as no owners or masters were ever punished, people flouting the High Court directives to ensure safety on the waterways continue to occupy important positions and recommendations made by probe committees following each accident always fell on deaf ears.

Experts also urged the shipping ministry to strengthen monitoring on certification process of vessels and their masters, revamp the department of shipping, activate the marine court and update the Shipping Ordinance to reduce accidents and ensure safety on river routes.    

They expressed dissatisfactions over the failure to implement some 38 recommendations of the three-member committee appointed by the government to probe into the sinking of MV Nasrin-1 on July 8, 2003 while it was on its way to Bhola from the capital.

The probe committee led by engineer and ship surveyor Shafiqul Islam had submitted its report on August 2, 2003.

The probe body found MV Nasrin as unfit and unapproved since it had faulty design.

The probe committee also found that the accident occurred for non-identification of dangerous tidal waves in the Meghna-Dakatia route in Chandapur, overloading passengers and goods, employment of unskilled master and incompetence of security staff.       

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’s naval architecture and marine engineering department professor Mohammad Rafiqul Islam told New Age on Tuesday that the Morning Bird launch which sank on Monday after being hit by a bigger vessel ‘does not meet any of the criteria required to be enlisted as a passenger vessel’.

Rafique said that he had been studying about 350 accidents since 2005 in which  he found that 60 per cent accident occurred because of collision while 45 per cent of them sank.

A well-designed vessel would never sink after being hit by another, he argued.

He urged the shipping ministry to remove such unfit vessels in phases and stop issuing registrations to such vessels as well as to untrained masters so that incompetent drivers were not allowed to sit behind the wheels.

He also urged the government to introduce a centralised vessels traffic controlling system to anchor and release vessels to avoid collisions.

Another professor of BUET’s naval architecture and marine engineering department Mir Tareque Ali requested the government to strengthen marine court and its prosecution side as well as updating the Shipping Ordinance to ensure punishment of vessel owners, employees and masters.

Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association’s executive director Syed Rizwana Hasan said that Bangladesh Inland Waters Transport Corporation failed to implement the High Court directives issued on August 25, 2011, to identify unfit vessels and stop them from running in ‘any circumstances’.

There has been no step taken by the BIWTC to implement the directive to ensure that all ships will have to be run by proper teams and will have to have appropriate life-saving equipment on-board and the police will provide sufficient number of law enforcers to prevent staff from overloading the vessels.

The HC bench of Justice Mirza Hussain Haider and Justice Md Nuruzzaman issued the directive after over 300 passengers were killed when Pinak-6 capsized on August 4, 2014.

The court passed the directive after hearing a supplementary public interest litigation writ petition filed by the BELA and Consumers Association of Bangladesh as continuation of their writ petition filed in 2001.

In the original writ, the High Court had also issued a series of directives and rules in succession in 2003, 2005 and 2009, asking the authorities to explain why they would not be directed to prevent launch disasters by implementing the laws on waterways and water vessels.

The court issued on August 25, 2011 fresh guidelines, because the petitioners argued that the previous directives had not been complied with.

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust lawyer Md Borkot Ali said that family members of 309 victims of MV Nasrin-1 launch capsize in the River Meghna near Chandpur in 2003 are yet to be paid the compensations as ordered by a lower court as well as the High Court.

He said that an appeal filed by Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority against the compensation order now remained pending with the Appellate Division since 2018.

He said that there was no bar to pay the compensations to the victims, all 110 passengers had drowned and 199 others went missing as the Appellate Division did not stay the compensation order.

The court directive requires the government to pay compensations to the injured passengers who were rescued.

BLAST had extended free legal service to the victims’ families.

Borkot Ali said that BLAST’s another suit was pending with Dhaka’s 3rd Joint District Ju