Category Archives: Marine Safety

Ferry Sinks in Assam, India

Excerpted from Assam Ferry Sinking on WikiNews:

On 30 April 2012, a ferry capsized in the Brahmaputra River in the Dhubri district of Assam state in north-eastern India.

Incident

According to officials, the incident occurred when a packed steamer carrying over 300 passengers was caught in a storm and subsequently capsized. The incident occurred near the Fakiragram village in the Dhubri district, about 350 km (220 mi) west of Guwahati.  The Superintendent of Police, Pradip Saloi, told The Hindu: “The ferry, originating from Dhubri and going towards Hatsingimari, capsized near Fakirganj. We are not sure about the actual number of passengers. We have been told that there were 250–300 passengers. However, there were reports of many swimming to safety.” Reuters reported that a police officer had said that the ferry had neither lifeboats nor life jackets and was overloaded with people and goods. Most of the passengers were farmers and farm families from the local area. Death toll According to India’s National Disaster Relief Force, bodies of 103 victims, including women and children, were recovered by the NDRF personnel and the Border Security Force near Jaleswar. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said that the death toll was likely to rise. [3] The dead bodies have been kept at the Dhubri Civil Hospital.

Assam Ferry Sinking

RNLI: 139,000 lives saved since 1824

Originally the “National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck,” renamed in 1854, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, has been saving lives and promoting marine safety, for nigh on 190 years. 139,000 lives have been saved since 1824. This is 139,000 people who would otherwise have been lost at sea. The number of lives preserved by the promotion of marine safety is harder to calculate, but doubtless much larger.

It’s an all-volunteer outfit which saves lives at sea in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, without, as we understand it, any government money. To an American, it may seem odd that a country famous for its National Health Service would rely on an all-volunteer marine safety program. Whether or not it’s philosophically consistent, it seems to work. We’ll take effective life-saving in place of ideology any day.

See also Wikipedia entry Royal National Lifeboat Institution.