Witnesses say Thekkady boat appeared unstable from start

Way back in 1999, there was an Eco-tourism Master Plan put in place for Thekkady. That Plan made it clear that such boat rides are a hazard for all stakeholders. Whatever happened to that Plan, I wonder?

Dear Sir,
Never go to Kerala or anywhere in India for boating. All these Government departments are useless and they do no follow the rules.

It is a tragedy of the worst kind. The passengers comprised mainly of groups of families of elders and their kids for enjoying the holidays. It ended in mass burial, worse than tsunamies.

It’s extremely sad that in Kerala each and every proposed action will reside only on paper. Everyone will forget the tragedy as soon as the media attention is lost and no actions will be taken after that, moreover Thekkady's tourism safety measures will be worsening as time passes. Rather than calling for investigations what initiatives has the government taken to reduce or avoid these kinds of tragedy? (We saw some other tragedy which took the lives of children). Here people are at their own risk. The end result of all the proposals will be increase in the wealth of a few politicians!

The State and Central governments distribute some money as a ritual to the victims or their relatives when a major or highly publicised accident takes place and the whole matter is then forgotten. It was horrendous to hear the Kerala Chief Minister, after the Thekkady accident, talking about insuring tourists and not about preventing accidents in tourist spots. Anyone who has travelled in buses in Kerala knows that how close to death he or she often gets to. Boat rides in tourist centres anywhere in India are always a scare. Ensuring the safety of the people ought to be a prime concern for governments. Why can't the government insist that wearing a life jacket is a must while riding in boats? Why can't the government employ safety officials and life guards at least in tourist spots where danger lurks?

Kerala has fantastic potential for tourism. Many of the tourist attractions are in waterways and it is important to take into account safety measures of tourists. Life jacket must be compulsorily provided to each passenger in a boat and the boat cannot leave the shore till each one wears it. Maintenance of boats is absolutely important, but the life jacket will save all lives, if a tragedy does occur. This one seemed to be waiting to happen.

I have been to Thekkady so many times. It is a wonderful experience boating in the lake and watching mother nature at its best. I have also noticed that the safety measures are below par. This is the case all over India. I wonder if there is any life jackets available in the boat house. It's a big shame. We might speak about it for couple of days and again get back to work. This, again, is a shame.

That's so sad. The government collects a lot of money under the name of tourism but hardly takes steps to maintain the boats and the lakes.

Atleast now the government should insist on safety measures like life jackets .

Alas!!!!!!!! We never seems learning from mistakes. A tragedy happened nearly a year ago in Kuttampuzha with so many school kids dead, due to carelessness of authority and lack of safety measures. Please care for our lives.

Even if the passengers are at fault in rushing to one side of the boat, if they had just been given, and made to wear, life jackets without any other safety instructions, the outcome of this incident would have been totally different. Our government does not even show concern if people are wearing their helmets while riding two wheelers on the roads [If at all some policemen do, they seem to do it for quick money or to achieve their targets for the month if any]. How will they be concerned about life-jackets in boats at tourist spots? The vast majority of the media rushes to report these deficiencies only when tragic incidents happen and worse still, do not follow up if the lessons learnt have been put into practice.

I am a regular traveller in domestic and international flights. I am actually bored of the safety instructions every time before take off. Now i realise its importance. Had there been safety instructions, many a precious lives of the people in the ill-fated boat could have been saved. In this case, it is even doubtful whether the crew itself are aware of the safety instructions and the minimum knowledge to use life jackets.

Corruption, sir, corruption! Its everywhere.

The importance of learning swimming is much brought out by Chintamani's surviving statement. Swimming can make a more fit India, and also give a life saving skill for every one. Life jacket is a must and must be worn at all times when you travel in water for such short trips.

I wish at least this could make our Government open its eyes and see what is happening.

This is a lesson for all. The best way to deal with such scenarios is to train ourselves and our young ones to deal with emergency situations like this.
Let's not wait for someone to lead us. With safety training, we can save ourself and help others. This is something we all can and must do at our level, at schools at colleges, at offices all along.
Medical first aid and swimming must be made a compulsary for all schools to make us more responsible citizens.

Whatever it may be, it is a blunder to travel without a life-jacket in a place of nearly 100 m depth. Unless certain regulations are not followed this kind of accidents are unavoidable.

Periyar Lake is still bleeding. We have a long trajectory from Pallana to Periyar. Each accident followed a judicial commission and several sittings and, of course, finally a report which is capable of accumulating heaps of dust. The VS government has done it again. Yet another farcical exercise.

Most people died in the tragedy because they were trapped within the boat. I don't think life-jackets would have helped them stay alive. On a day-to-day basis, in over-crowded tourist locations like Thekkady the tourist officials may feel it's better to overload the boats rather than suffer the wrath of passengers for not allowing to sail.

The boats must be fitted with stabilizers like the amphibious plane landing mechanism.They can counter the turning movements. Nobody cares for safety and there were comments the life jackets would be issued to the VIPs. We ordinary people never go by any boats in a tourist resort, because the authorities never count you as a human being worth anything.

I will certainly say that it is 100 % the fault of the ruling Kerala Government for not having imposed stringent rules governing such water-side tourist spots on those who operate such unworthy and unfit boats and sea-faring machinery. Alas! the public suffer the loss.

There is a crisis of governance in India and especially in Kerala. After every such accident, some low-level employees like the boat-drivers will be punished and the Ministers and senior officials who are responsible for ensuring efficient governance will get away. There is absolutely no rule of law in India. Nobody cares for traffic laws or other civic laws. Such incidents will continue to repeat unless we become a law-abiding society.

We visited this place this summer and we witnessed that the boat operators and crew have no idea about safety. The Kerala Tourism is the worst in operating boat service. They never gave any instruction on how to wear the life-jackets and on other safety matters. Also, they gave preference to foreigners over Indians because of money. Government should take severe action and place a right system (privatization) to operate well.

First, the government should inspect the company that built the boat. Did they design it correctly and test it properly? No boat will tilt when people move from one side to another. Second, the passengers lacked life jackets - the culprit is the Kerala Tourism Board.

I agree with the opinion of the majority especially the experts like Mr.Ryan the occasional sailor from England, who observed and the survivors of the tragedy who experienced the problem with the movement of the boat. This is an example of utter escapism. What kind of crew are appointed to run these boats?? Will they not observe the changes in these mechanical devices, the unusual feelings while starting the machine? It was really disheartening and cannot be forgotten at all. There are no secured measures like safety jackets, good conditioning of transport vehicles and so on. However much one is trained in swimming or any adventurous sports, these disasters cannot be faced properly as they are not anticipated. Anyways, being good at swimming is always excellent at least to safeguard one's own life and if possible help others.

It is sad that the tourism ministry spent many crores in the "God´s own country" campaign and nothing on passenger safety. I wonder what other dangers lurk in "Incredible India"?

Disregard for public safety seems to be the national character. After the Thekkady incident there will be more press conferences and public declarations. There will be some changes in and around Periyar Lake for a few months, after that they will fade away. There will still be thousands of boats plying in Kuttanadu and elsewhere, still unregulated, unsupervised and unsafe. There will be mass causalities waiting in crowded trains without safety features and speeding buses and lorries without regulations. Bus-stands and roads without adequate pedestrian and vehicular separation will continue to lead major headline shockers. Poorly engineered roads, buildings and land modifications will kill hundreds, either by poor or by complete lack of standards. Day-to-day pollutants and contaminants in air, soil, water and food will kill. All of these are man made disasters which can be prevented to a greater degree, by the political will to create empirical standards and regulations. When will we learn that the physical environment in a crowded society, impacting with the power of omnipresent modern technology in a day to day street context needs to be scaled and regulated; just as the more high-tech attributes of industrial production, medicine, radiation etc are, in a better-controlled environment?

This tragedy is solely due to the irresponsibility of KTDC and the Kerala government has to take moral responsibility for this accident. Blaming innocent passengers and shying away from responsibility is cruel and shameful. This has done irreparable damage to Kerala's image and tourism potential.

Unfortunately, most Keralites mistake "literacy" for "efficiency".

Maybe its time for the survivors to sue the persons (Kerala Government) responsible for this tragedy. It is due to utter lack of responsibility from all quarters who run the tourism department, that incidents of this nature occur frequently. We don't give importance to the value of a life. I think we never will.

I don't know if Kerala would still be called as "God's Own Country" after such a horrible incident. Life jackets would have save almost all of them.

The Kerala government is putting up 5 lakhs rupees for each life. Nothing more for any precautions.

There doesn't exist any concepts pertaining to safety in India. Life has no value here and hence no measures to safeguard it. Neither the victims nor the managers of such boat rides knew about the needed safety measures (including life jackets).

I am a boat builder for the last 24 years. From the photo of the boat, it appears as the hieight of the super structure of the boat is very high and the width to length ratio is less. There might be more passengers than advisable on the fist deck, making the boat unstable with the centre of gravity shifting upwards. At the same time the absence of passengers on the bottom floor might have created further instability. The crews of the boat should always see the balance with its load.

I am from Kerala and I regularly visits tourist spots mainly in this state with family members comprising elders and kids. I feel deeply sad for the people who were involved in this accident. As everyone else pointed out there are no pro-active measures taken by the government. Media gives it attention only when an accident happens. After a few days everybody forgets about the accident and situation is back to square one. I personally have felt unsafe at least at some of the tourist spots. I would like to point out a few.
1. Eddakkal caves in Wayanad. We visited this place in April this year. It is on a hill and steep steps are there to climb. The hand railings were missing at many places and there is only one narrow path for both climbing up and down. There were no guards to regulate the flow of people. This spot is an accident waiting to happen.
2. Lion safari at Neyyar dam : We can see lions at close quarters. The bus we went was really old and the driver side window was unprotected. An irate animal can jump through that window and kill a few people.
3. Boating in Kanyakumari : Though not in Kerala, I am including this also. The boat we went in was really old and was swaying from side to side.
Hope the government learns from this tragedy and improves the safety measures.

Shame again. Our government will never change. This would have been in the headlines for one year had this happened in the US or UK. Not only media coverage but also the next steps and how to avoid recurrence would have been the hot subject in those parts of the world.

We were on the ill-fated boat on Saturday the 26th of September for the 7 am ride. The boat appeared to have an unusually tall design compared with the other boats. But it was a new boat, and we were happy to be on it. However, soon after it left the shore, we felt a tendency of the boat to tilt. Whenever 2-3 people moved on the upper deck moved to one side for a closer look, the boat would tilt to that side. We did feel a little nervous about it, and talked about it, but then, we assumed everything would be fine. Little did we know that we were on a boat destined for tragedy. The previous evening, we were on the heavy, wide bodied boat, Jalaraja, and it was a very stable ride. I presume there were flaws in the design of the ill-fated boat. We had an uneasy ride, but we survived. Unfortunately, that was not to be on Wednesday.

I express my deep condolence to all the people who lost their dear ones in this heartbreaking tragedy. The repeated incidents such as this should be prevented. This is one of the many examples that show the poor condition of maintenance and safety measures. These lapses check the flow of tourists as well as the economy of the country. While Government is to a great measure responsible for the safety, what tends to be often overlooked is that the people are ultimately responsible for their own safety. I believe this is the time for the people to arise. One of the ways is to refuse to tour if there are no proper precautions. After all, life is more precious than sightseeing.

My heart goes out to all those affected by this tragedy. Whenever some thing like this happen, We all look to blame either government or other. Safety is everyone's business, not just government. If every citizen of India does his part, these sort of mishaps will be less. No one follows any rules until the tragedy strikes. As someone put it, we see this a callous disregard for safety everywhere. You take any public or private transportation it is visible. If you take any public gathering at any venue whether it is religious, social, private or even official, one can hardly see safety measures in place. People who are in-charge of overseeing operation are hardly trained to oversee any event like this. People in general do not have any regard for their own safety or others. We people make the society and government. Until, we start caring for our life and that of others, unfortunate events like this go on.

The boat sank around 5.00 PM. The first priority of the villagers was to save the lives of the ill-fated tourists. You may be surprised at how the rescue operation was done by the local public with limited resources. Mobilizing manpower and reaching to the accident spot also was the first task as the lake is deep inside dense forest, with no approach roads other than the waterway.

Bringing the injured people, giving them first-aid, getting ambulances to take them to hospitals... all these were difficult tasks. But here locals (rickshaw and taxi drivers’ private car-owners, villagers and medical practitioners) whole-heartedly rushed to the boat landing. They all contributed their best. Meanwhile, although it started to rain, it did not slow down the rescue operations

Tourists found floating were rescued first, and then task was to salavage the sinking boat to the shore before sunset. Within an hour or so, the boat was salvaged and moved to the shore. As the victims were being rescued, there was a line-up of private vehicles to take those needing medical attention to nearby hospitals

As the sun started setting, the issue was to set up appropriate lighting. Meanwhile, small generators started coming from nearby shops and hotels. The news of the tragedy started spreading to nearby places. There was a Malayalam cinema shooting was going on at Theni, 80 km from Thekkady. The film unit immediately packed up their lighting equipment and generator and rushed to the accident spot.

Most of the possible rescue operations were completed by the local public and the local officials before the government machinery got its act together.

THE UNTOLD STORY The small village did not sleep. She was restless and its residents were running to help in every possible way they could. They all worked alongside the Police and the Forest officials. This big accident was reported by many of the local news channels, but most of the north Indian channels are ignoring it.

The story how local people rose the occasion to rescue posted by Nair Priya is touching one. It again demonstrates that people rise as one man without caste feelings and their primary efforts were to save people who are their fellow Indians.

An example worth emulating by all of us.

What is absent in India is a "culture of safety". Safety takes third place to aesthetics and money. We build cheap tinfoil cars that can't protect their occupants from an angry buffalo. We build shiny marble staircases in our houses and have our maidservants scrub them with water every day to ensure that the next hapless person to use the stairs will require spinal reconstruction. Hundreds of people are killed on our roads everyday by unsafe vehicles being driven at unsafe speeds.

I am an engineer and the moment I saw the images on TV of the Thekkady boat I was shocked that such top heavy designs for river boats are in use. I was aghast when they announced that they found nothing wrong with the boat and that it may even be used again without changes to its faulty design! The KTDC is alone to be blamed for allowing & sanctioning a double deck on a river boat which have low drafts. It was the top heavy upper deck (and at a height too tall for that boat) that caused the boat to topple and nothing else as people are expected to run to the side they see the animals. The inspectors who allowed the use of this boat should be charged with murder.