(Dhaka) At least 51 people died and fifteen remained missing Monday, the day after the sinking in a river in northern Bangladesh of a boat carrying Hindu pilgrims, according to a new report from the police.
Updated yesterday at 2:42 p.m.
The death toll rose after rescuers found 26 more bodies in the Karotoa River, downstream from the town of Boda where the boat tipped over and sank, local police official Sirajul Huda said.
The boat was carrying about 90 people, including about 50 Hindu pilgrims, according to the police.
“We will resume search operations tomorrow morning,” Huda told AFP on Monday evening.
Police have lowered the estimated number of missing, previously 60, as some were able to swim out and be reunited with their families. It now stands at around fifteen, according to the police chief.
Mr. Huda explained on Monday that the number of passengers represented three times the capacity of the boat.
“There was heavy rain in the morning and that’s why […] the pilgrims piled into the boat to quickly arrive at the temple,” the official detailed.
“The boatman asked some people to disembark to lighten the load. But no one listened”.
According to local media, at least ten people were rescued and hospitalized.
Footage taken with mobile phones, relayed by the television channel Channel 24, shows the overloaded boat suddenly flipping over, throwing the passengers into the muddy waters of the river.
Long list of disasters
Dozens of people on the banks about 20 meters away started screaming and screaming when they saw the scene. The weather was calm at the time of the tragedy.
Thousands of Hindus from Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, visit the Bodeshwari temple every year. Sunday marked the start of Durga Puja, the main Hindu festival in Bangladesh – as in eastern India – which draws large crowds to temples.
This accident extends a long list of comparable disasters in this country of 170 million inhabitants, poor and crossed by many rivers and rivers.
The tragedies associated with shipwrecks are mainly blamed on lack of maintenance, lax safety standards and overcrowding on board.
In December more than 40 people died when a crowded ferry caught fire in the south of the country.
The flames broke out early in the morning when most passengers were sleeping near Jhakakathi, a rural town some 250 kilometers south of the capital Dhaka.
In June 2021 a ferry sank in Dhaka after colliding with another ship, killing at least 32 people.
At least 78 people died in February 2015 when an overcrowded boat collided with a freighter in a river west of the capital.