Bangladesh ferry capsizes with 100 passengers on board

A Bangladeshi ferry carrying more than 100 passengers capsized on Sunday in the Padma river, 70 km (44 miles) north of the capital, Dhaka, police said.

Bidhan Tripura, police superintendent of Manikganj district, said the ferry was hit by a cargo trawler but that no casualties had yet been reported.

Low-lying Bangladesh, with extensive inland waterways and slack safety standards, suffers regular ferry disasters, with deaths sometimes running into the hundreds.

The ferry was heading to Paturia from Daulatdia in Rajbari.

Ten days ago, at least three people have died after a boat carrying Muslim pilgrims travelling to an annual Islamic congregation capsized in a river in southern Bangladesh.

The overloaded ferry with 200 passengers aboard sank on Friday Feb 13 in the Taltoli estuary leading to the Bay of Bengal, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of the capital, Dhaka, police said.

Most of the passengers on the boat, which departed from Bangladesh’s southernmost coastal town of Kuakata, were heading to a religious gathering in the southwestern Bangladesh district of Barguna, said Babul Akhter, an official at Barguna police station.

While rescuers in Bangladesh have managed to retrieve the bodies after the boat capsized, still five passengers are unaccounted for, Akhter said, adding, “Most of the passengers were able to swim ashore.”

Ferry accidents are common in riverine low-lying Bangladesh with slack safety standards. Casualties of appalling shipping accidents sometimes run above hundreds.

Last August, Bangladesh for the first time arrested the owner of a ferry which sank resulting in the death of 110 people.

Sunday 22 February 2015

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