Boat fire kills 37 in Bangladesh Globalism

The accident occurred at night in the vicinity of the rural municipality of Jhelokati, 250 km south of the capital, Dhaka. Nearly 500 people were on board the ship.

Local police chief Moin al-Islam said the three-story boat, the Abhijan 10, “burned in the middle of the river.”

“We have recovered 37 bodies and the death toll may rise. Most of them died in the fire and others drowned while jumping into the river“, He said.

The police chief explained that the fire broke out in the engine room and spread throughout the ship, which was crowded with people returning from Dhaka to their homes.

“We are transporting more than 100 people with burns to hospitals in Barisal,” he said.

An elderly passenger said, “We slept on the first floor. All the passengers were asleep. My nine-year-old grandson Naim was with me and he jumped into the river. I don’t know if he survived.” Her name is not mentioned.

Other passengers said they noticed a small fire in the engine room as the boat set sail from Dhaka’s Sadarja port on Thursday evening.

A survivor at Barisal Medical College Hospital said: “Many people ran for safety as the fire spread. Many passengers were unable to get out of their rooms as they were sleeping. Many jumped into the river.”

This is the latest in a series of similar incidents in this region of the Ganges delta.

Experts from the South Asian country of 170 million people attribute the accidents to Lack of maintenance, low safety standards and overcrowding of ships.

In August, a ferry collision with a cargo ship laden with sand killed at least 21 people in a lake in the eastern part of the country.

In April and May, two accidents killed 54 people. In June 2020, at least 32 passengers were killed in a ferry collision in Dhaka.

One of the biggest disasters occurred in February 2015, when 78 people were killed in a collision between a passenger ferry and a cargo ship.

Fires are also a common source of tragedies. In July, 52 people were killed in a fire at a food and beverage factory in the industrial city of Robganj on the outskirts of Dhaka.

At least 70 people were killed in February 2019 in a fire that broke out in an apartment building in Dhaka where chemicals were illegally stored.