At least 32 people died on Friday (December 24) in an overloaded ferry fire on a river in Bangladesh, police say, a common tragedy in the poor South Asian country.
Read alsoBangladesh: 25 dead in a collision of boats
The Obhijan 10, a three-story ferry, “
caught fire in the middle of the river. We recovered 32 bodies. The toll could grow heavier. Most died in the blaze and a few drowned after jumping into the river,
”local police chief Moinul Islam told AFP. The drama took place early in the morning near the town of Jhalokathi, 250 km south of the capital Dhaka.
According to Moinul Islam, the fire would have started in the engine room before spreading in the ferry crowded with people returning home from Dhaka.
"
We have sent 100 people with burns to hospitals in Barisal
," he added.
The accident is the latest in a series of similar disasters in the low-lying country located around a delta made up of hundreds of rivers.
Lax safety standards and overcrowding
Millions of people in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people, depend heavily on ferries for their transport, especially in the southern coastal region. But the ships are insecure. Experts point to the lack of maintenance of ships, lax safety standards and overcrowding of ferries.
In August, a collision between a ferry and a freighter carrying sand left at least 21 people dead on a lake in the east of the country. Boats carrying sand are largely submerged and difficult to see when conditions are bad. The ferry was carrying around 60 passengers when it was struck by the steel bow of the freighter near the town of Bijoynagar. The divers must have searched for the bodies in the muddy waters of the lake. In April and May, 54 people died in two separate crashes. In June 2020, at least 32 people were killed in a collision between two ferries in Dhaka. In February 2015, at least 78 passengers were killed in the collision of a crowded ferry and a freighter.
Fires are also the cause of many tragedies in Bangladesh.
In July, 52 people died in a fire at a food factory in Rupganj, an industrial town on the outskirts of Dhaka.
More than 70 people were killed in February 2019 in flames that ravaged apartments in Dhaka where chemicals were illegally stored.
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