| |
 |
Ferry disaster kills at least 80
|
HUNDREDS of people gathered on Saturday to claim the bodies of relatives who died in a ferry disaster on Friday, while survivors struggled to describe the chain of events that left at least 80 people dead and dozens missing.
The double-deck ship was on its way from Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, to the southern city of Madaripur when a heavy bank of fog rolled across the Meghna River on Friday night. Most of the 400 passengers were sleeping when the ferry smashed into another passenger ship.
Mohammad Rafiq, a 35-year-old shop assistant and one of the 150 survivors, was aboard the ferry with his wife, two small children and four brothers. He was sleeping on the upper deck of the steel-and-wood ship when he heard a loud crash.
''As I saw the ferry going down under water, I jumped overboard without looking for my family,'' he said.
Hours after Rafiq was safely on shore, rescuers recovered the bodies of his wife and children and two brothers.
''How could I leave them behind? Allah will never forgive me,'' said Rafiq, crying in front of the bodies that were placed in a boat at Chandpur River port terminal on Saturday. He was still waiting for the bodies of two other brothers.
The ferry that sank had a capacity of 200 people but was crowded with twice that number. Most of the passengers were returning home after visiting relatives for the Eid al-Fitr holiday in this predominantly Muslim nation. The ferry went down 500 yards from shore after the collision.
There were no casualties on the other ferry, which authorities detained.
Ferry disasters are frequent in Bangladesh, a tropical delta nation with hundreds of rivers. At least 100 people were killed when an overcrowded ferry was caught in a storm in May and sank in the Meghna, and a ferry sinking in the same river in 1986 left at least 224 dead. (SD-Agencies)
|
|
|
|
