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–goers risk their lives
Launch
operators are cashing in on the huge rush of passengers and overloading their
vessels on Mawa-Kandi route in the Padma river risking lives of thousands ahead
of eid. The authorities concerned are turning a blind eye to the nuisance ,
though the government has repeatedly announced of taking stern actions against
overload. In the past, many launches sank due mainly to overloading .
Event
passenger vessel pinak-6 sank in the turbulent Padma on August 4,2014 while
carrying more that 200 people against its capacity of 85. Forty-eight bodies were
recovered and 62 were missing in that disaster. During a visit to the Mawa
launches terminal yesterday it was seen that more of the lunches were carrying
passengers more than double of their capacity. Their correspondent randomly
selected some launches at the terminal, checked their capacity and counted the
passenger on board. The launches MV Princes has the capacity to carry 169
passenger and left the terminal with around
350 passenger on board around 12:00pm.The MV shaon Express has the
capacity to carry 189 passenger. But it was capacity around 360 passenger. The
Zihan and Zayan has the capacity of 148 passenger but it was carrying
around 400 passenger .
When such
overloading was going on , several members of the Bangladesh Inland
Transporting Authority(BIWTA) and police were seen on during at the terminal.
They were not checking the capacity of the launches or the number of passenger
on board. They were rather……….see page
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