In the course of this week, two major boat tragedies — the first in Bihar and now in Kerala — have claimed over 100 lives. In Bihar, at least 60 persons, including 34 children drowned when a boat sank in the swollen Bagmati river. In the tourist resort of Thekkady on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, more than 40 people died in an accident that involved a State Tourism Corporation’s new double-decker boat. Evidently, both the tragedies could have been averted if only the established safety norms had been followed. Such tragedies, however, are not new to the subcontinent, or even to the South East Asian region. Several Commissions of Inquiry and expert committees have time and again pinpointed the basic norms to be observed when boats carry passengers. This applied equally to a ferry service across a river and tourist rides on lakes. Some of the fundamental norms of safety relate to and include the number of passengers taken on board, the safety gadgets and trained rescue personnel to be ready at hand in the vessel, the dos and don’ts for the passengers, and the imperative of ensuring that they indeed adhered to the rules. Unfortunately, these are honoured more in the breach.
In the Thekkady tragedy — the Kerala government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the accident — groups of tourists from other States including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and West Bengal were involved. Preliminary reports indicate that when a sizable section of the tourists on board moved to one side to catch a glimpse of the elephants moving around the lake, the boat capsized. As it happened to be a Kerala Tourism Corporation boat, lifeguards and safety gadgets were available. But the tourists were not wearing the life jackets on board — apparently, nobody had insisted on their doing so. Since the accident took place at least seven kilometres away from the boathouse, it took time for the rescue boats to get into the act. Bad weather compounded the problem; some passengers could still be rescued. It does not require an enquiry commission or committee to pronounce what went wrong and what should be done to avert such disasters. It is a simple question of implementing the safety norms that have already been worked out and circulated. Just as it requires the enforcement agencies to implement the rules, passengers must also take the prescribed safety precautions seriously, and cooperate with the authorities as well as the ferry operators. Non-government organisations could pitch in and launch an awareness campaign which should go some way in securing better compliance of the safety norms by the boat operators and users alike.
Keywords: Kerala, Thekkady boat tragedy, Bihar, boat mishap, Bagmati river
Thekkady boat tragedy
Comments:
The Kerala government, if it wants to attract tourists from other parts of India and foreign countries must improve to enforce simple laws of wearing life jackets, train personnel and have modern boats. Human life has no value India. This has nothing to do with god or karma. It is lack of laws and enforcement. The victim families must take the Kerala Government to task for lack of protection for their family members.
An avoidable tragedy! There are boat rides for tourists at many places like Elephanta, Varanasi, Nagarjunasagar, Chilika, Udaipur, Mount Abu, Nainital, and Udupi. Can we hope life jackets will be provided at all such places in the future? Or will things stay as they are, waiting for more tragedies? Does the Ministry of Tourism only believe in sending people to these places and then leaving them to their fate?
While the comments above make very valid points about basic safety measures that are lacking in India (even Tanzania has laws about life jackets on boats), what shocked me was the photos of the victims including those of relatives crying next to the bodies while people are clicking away with their cameras in the background. What is the value of human life in India? Zero? Is any dignity afforded to the human body? At least after death, please respect someone's child, wife or father. We don't need the photos of their dead bodies to be splashed across newspapers. The Hindu should not publish these photos.
Unfortunately, most of the tragedies in India are avoidable. Please look at the way we drive on our roads. Even an ordinary person can understand that the cause behind most of the accidents is criminally-rash driving. Yet nothing is being done to enforce the law. This is also the case in building collapses, boat tragedies, illicit liquor tragedies, communal riots etc. In the name of democracy, we have become a criminally-permissive society.
Looking at these comments here, it is also interesting to ask ourselves how much we care for the rules. Even at Thekkady tourists, particularly Indians, refuse to use life jackets. People even refuse to heed instructions from employees not to overcrowd the boat. If someone does care to go by the rule he is taunted for it. So what should we do to discipline ourselves?
Responsibility of our lives lies with us more than it does with the Government. If life jackets were there then people should have worn them. I think we need awareness of how important our lives are. Thrill should not take precedence over prudence.
We Indians believe that 'rules are for fools'. A decade ago, after a similar boat tragedy, all passengers aboard boats were provided with life jackets compulsorily in Kerala. A few months later, this was quietly withdrawn. Just see how many road rules we follow - we are the world leaders in deaths due to accidents. May be because, we have one billion plus people, we feel that many of us can be wasted this way. Unless there is a change in our mindset, these 'boat tragedies' and others will continue. We will all write and comment indignantly, editorial writers will have a topic to write about and politicians & officials will jump in with their knee-jerk responses and then it will be business as usual. At least let the educated people in Tamil Nadu show the way by wearing helmets and seat belts and obey traffic lights.
Hello Kerala Tourism. Without safety of the tourism what tourism are you promoting? The Kerala government is smart in advertising their tourism, but neither the Kerala government nor the Tourism Board is taking care of the safety of the tourists. I had read frequent boat accidents in Kerala killing people in the 30s and 40s. Every time we also hear about some judicial or high level enquiry. But nobody knows what the outcome is. In Kerala this is true not only of boat accidents but also of road accidents.
Though I am not talking anything against safety, it should be noted that there is a fundamental engineering flaw in the design of these boats. Just by having the passengers move from one place to the other should not cause the boat to capsize. If only we invest the tourism money in engineering the infrastructure, such calamities can be avoided. Using budgets to "study" tourism by our Ministers has resulted in the loss of life.
I believe its only negligence that has ended up in this tragic situation. Be it design, construction, inspection or approval, negligence to keep up the standards, rules and regulations is making our situation worse. We do stick onto unwanted procedures and policies for our routine activities, but when it comes to human lives, no standards are fixed. We need to have a solution for this at least from now onwards. It is better to close down everything and start from scratch to bring up an error free, bribe free, standard, reliable system which brings safety and security to public.