Inland Water Transport Accidents: The Case of Bangladesh

Transcription

1 Global Science and Technology Journal Vol. 5. No. 1. September 2017 Issue. Pp Inland Water Transport Accidents: The Case of Bangladesh Md. Imran Uddin 1,*, Kazi Md. Shifun Newaz 2, Shahnewaz Hasanat-E-Rabbi 3 and Shahrior Pervaz 4 This study analyzes the inland water transport accidents in Bangladesh during 2005 to 2015 based on the data collected from the Department of Shipping (DOS) of Bangladesh. It is found that the major cause of waterway accidents is the collision (60.3%). It is also seen that cargo vessels and passenger vessels are mainly responsible for the accidents and waterways of Barisal, Chandpur and Chittagong districts are the most vulnerable zone for the occurrence of accidents. The most important point is that 45% of all the vessels are sunk ultimately after the accident that increases the probability of fatality by drowning. Keywords: Accidents; collision; cargo vessel; passenger vessel Field of Research: Inland water transportation safety 1. Introduction Bangladesh is a land of river. Huge networks of waterway channels are distributed all over the country. Due to possessing this geographical advantage, inland water transportation system has become one of the most popular modes of transport. More than ten thousand registered vessels along with numerous unregistered ships and boats move in this vast waterway network. But, the safety situation in the waterways of Bangladesh is not satisfactory at all. Every year lots of people die, many get injured and some others are found missing due to the accidents in the inland waterway. As a result, there has been a huge loss in both human lives and financial terms. The Regulatory bodies of the government do not record all the accidents that occur. They only investigate and record the accidents of the vessels registered by them. But a huge number of accidents involving the unregistered vessels are not investigated and recorded at all. So, the death toll and loss claimed by the authorities does not represent the actual scenario of the accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. The findings of this paper are different from other papers from two viewpoints. Firstly, the other research papers showed that overloading and inclement weather in combined form is the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh. This is true 1 Lecturer, Accident Research Institute (ARI), Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET,) Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. mdimran.buet@gmail.com 2 Assistant Professor, Accident Research Institute (ARI), Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh, newazshifun@gmail.com 3 Lecturer, Accident Research Institute (ARI), Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh, shahnewaz.rabbi@gmail.com 4 Lecturer, Accident Research Institute (ARI), Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh, parvezs.buet08@gmail.com 56

2 for analyzing accidents of very long duration like thirty to forty years. And this is also a common belief among the general people of Bangladesh. But by analyzing the accidents of last few years this paper reveals that the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh is the collision. Secondly, this paper elaborately shows that a significant proportion of vessels sink under water ultimately after the occurrence of accidents. This was not previously shown in any research paper. The section 1 of this paper deals with Introduction. Section 2 focuses on the literature review of some research papers related to the inland water transportation safety of Bangladesh. The next section illustrates the classification of Inland Waterways of Bangladesh. Section 4 describes the accident data collection method of this study. The analysis of waterway accidents is demonstrated in section 5. Section 6 deals with the analysis of the research findings. Finally, section 7 deals with the conclusion of the study. 2. Literature Review A number of studies have been carried out in the field of inland water transport accidents of Bangladesh. However, due to the limitation of adequate data the numbers of in-depth analysis of accidents are quite a few. A study by Baten (2004) pointed out the irregularities of the safety issues in the inland water transport sector of Bangladesh. He further proposed for the formation of a classification society to improve the prevailing inland waterway safety situation. Chowdhury (2005) applied Geographical Information System (GIS) to study the characteristics of the inland waterway accidents. An analysis of waterway accidents of Bangladesh during 1985 to 2014 showed that the two main repeatedly reported cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh mostly in combined form are overloading and inclement weather (Degiuli et al 2015). A study by Awal (2007) revealed that during 1995 to 2005 the major cause of waterway accident was cyclone & overloading. Khalil and Tarafder (2004) proposed some design modifications of the vessel for improving the initial stability of the vessels to prevent capsizing during emergency situations. By analyzing the types of vessels involved it was found that cargo and passenger carrying vessels and boats were mainly responsible for the occurrence of accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh (Hoque et al 2010). From the above studies, two hypotheses can be made. The first one is the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh is overloading and inclement weather in combined form. The other one is cargo and passenger vessels are mainly responsible for the occurrence of accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. Nevertheless, it is realized from the studies that development in the field of accident investigation and database is necessary that can provide pragmatic recommendations and solutions to be implemented. Advances in such areas will ultimately improve the safety situation in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. 57

3 3. Inland Waterways of Bangladesh: An Overview Bangladesh has an extensive inland waterway network of 24,000 kilometers in length. The length of navigable inland waterways is approximately 5,995 km, which, however, decreases to 3,865 km during dry seasons. The inland waterways have been classified into four classes of routes on the basis of Least Available Depth (LAD) of Waterway (Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority 2017). Class I: This is the main transport corridors where the Least Available Depth (LAD) of 3.6 m is required to be maintained all round the year. Class II: This class of route Links major inland ports of economic importance to class I routes. Class III: These are the feeder routes of regional importance having a mean depth of 90 cm. Class IV: These are the Seasonal routes of less than 90 cm depth. Its total length of 2400 km is equivalent to 40 per cent of the total network. Table 1 shows the characteristics of each class of inland navigable waterways of Bangladesh. Table 1: Characteristics of the Classes of Inland Navigable Waterways of Bangladesh Class Indicated depth (m) Minimum Vertical clearance (m) Minimum Horizontal Clearance (m) Length of Route (km) and percentage (%) I (11.39%) II (17.13%) III (31.44%) IV Less than (40.04%) Total 5995 (100%) 4. Accident Data Collection For accident analysis a widespread database is essential. Without a standard database, fruitful accident analysis cannot be carried out. The data of waterway accidents were collected from the reports of Department of Shipping (DOS) of Bangladesh. These reports mainly contain accident data in a very general format that are mainly used for legal purposes. So it is very ponderous to extract research worthy data from these reports. Moreover, some important parameters of the accidents are not mentioned in these reports. The time of the accident and the type of vessel under accident are not mentioned specifically in most of the cases which created a barrier for effective accident analysis. In total 229 accidental events have been considered for the analysis in which 381 vessels were involved. 58

4 Uddin, Newaz, Rabbi & Pervaz 5. Accident Analysis 5.1. Accident Type In this analysis, different types of accidents of the vessels have been identified, such as collision, adverse weather, overloading, stability failure, excessive current, bottom bo damage and others. Figure 1 shows the percentages of the accidents. It is quite evident that collision of the vessels (60.3%) is the major cause of the accident in th the inland waterways of Bangladesh. It has been found from the collected data that nearly 92% of all the collision type accident has occurred among the vessels. The rest 8% of collision related accident occurs by the contact of the vessel with any permanent obstruction like pontoon and pillar of a bridge. Accidents idents due to adverse weather (8.7%) %) usually take place during the monsoon season when the Nor wester takes place and weather often remains bad. About 6.1% 6 accidents have occurred due to overloading. Stability failure related accidents occur due to improper design of vessels. High tide and excess water wave generated by the nearby moving vessel usually lead to excessive current type accidents. Due to the presence of any underwater obstruction, bottom d damage type accidents take place. Figure 1:: Percentage of Different Types of Accidents Bottom Damage 4.8% Excessive Current 4.8% Others 10.5% Stability Failure 4.8% Overloading 6.1% Collision 60.3% Adverse Weather 8.7% 5.2. Accident Locations Analysis on accident locations suggests that accidents have taken place in the waterways of some particular districts. From Table 2 it is observed that the waterway areas of the districts Barisal, Chandpur, Chittagong, Khulna, Munshiganj and Dhaka are the most vulnerable zones for the occurrence of waterway accident. In the northern part of the country,, the waterway channels have a low draft where the 59

5 medium and large size vessels usually cannot move; particularly during the dry seasons. So accidents usually do not take place there. But, in the southern part of the country, there are more waterway networks that remain navigable round the year due to the presence of adequate water draft. In that zone, most of the vessels move as being the primary mode of transport. So, accidents have taken place at a higher proportion in the southern part than the northern part of the country Types of Vessels Table 2: District Wise Distribution of Accidents Districts No. of accidents Percentage Barisal Chandpur Chittagong Khulna Munshiganj Dhaka Narayanganj Lakshmipur Patuakhali Kishoreganj Shariatpur Sunamganj Bhola Pirojpur Other Districts Total In this study, several types of vessels were identified that are responsible for the accidents as shown in Figure 2. Among them, cargo vessel (27%) and passenger vessel (26.3%) are the leading ones. Due to increasing population and economic demand of the country huge numbers of cargo and passenger vessels ply over the inland waterways. So, cargo and passenger vessels are causing a higher proportion of accidents in comparison to the other types of vessels. Moreover, country boat and engine driven trawlers, oil tankers, fishing vessel, speed boat etc. were also found to experience accidents. But, a major drawback for the analysis was that about 32.3% of the vessels were not specified in the accident reports that were collected from the Department of Shipping. This indicates the poor accident investigation and reporting system of Bangladesh. 60

6 Figure 2: Percentage of Type of Vessels 35 Percentage of accident Cargo vessel Passenger vessel Country boat & Trawler Type of vessel Oil Tanker Others Unspecified 5.4. Accident Time - Month Cross Tabulation Table 3 shows the cross tabulation of accident time versus month. The tabular analysis shows that during the months of January, February and August more accidents have taken place in comparison to the other months. It is also seen that accidents occur around the clock. But, from 1800 hrs to 0600 hrs i.e. during night time more accidents have taken place in comparison to the day time. It is also clear from the table that a large proportion of accidents have the time unreported which is a major deficiency in the waterway accident analysis. This also indicates the poor accident investigation and reporting system of Bangladesh. 61

7 Table 3: Cross Tabulation of Accident Time vs. Month Quarters Month 00:00-05:59 06:00-11:59 12:00-17:59 18:00-23:59 Unreported Total January February March April May June July August September October November December Total Accident Type-Consequent Condition of Vessels After Accident Cross Tabulation The Accident type and consequent condition of vessels after accident cross tabulation are shown in table 4. It is observed that about 45% of all the vessels that face accident are sunk immediately after the occurrence of the accident. This is a matter of great concern because when a vessel sinks, the probability of death by drowning increases. Moreover, there is often the shortage of life-saving appliances in the vessels. It is also found from the analysis that, due to collision about 67% vessels remain afloat. But, the accidents due to adverse weather, overloading, stability failure, excessive current, bottom damage and others generally lead the vessels to sink under water. This may be due to the poor design of the vessels. 62

8 Table 4: Cross Tabulation of Accident Type vs. Consequent Condition of Vessels after Accident Accident type Consequent condition of vessels Sunk Afloat Unspecified Total Collision Adverse Weather Overloading Stability Failure Excessive Current Bottom Damage Others Total 171 (45%) 206 (54%) 4 (1%) 381 (100%) 6. Analysis of Research Findings The research findings of this study can be outlined in the following way: Collision (60.3%) is the major cause of waterways accidents in Bangladesh. The southern zone of Bangladesh is more vulnerable to waterway accidents compared to the northern zone. Cargo and Passenger vessels are mainly responsible for the accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. During night time more accidents have taken place in comparison to the day time. After the occurrence of accidents, nearly 45% vessels are sunk under water. The accident Investigation and reporting system in Bangladesh is very poor. The first hypothesis that was made at the beginning of the study is not supported according to the above results. The hypothesis states that the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh is overloading and inclement weather in combined form. But, the results show that collision is the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh. The next hypothesis states that Cargo and passenger vessels are mainly responsible for the occurrence of accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. On the basis of above results, it is seen that the second hypothesis is supported. A Belief among the general people is that most of the accidents in the inland waterway of Bangladesh take place due to overloading and bad weather. But the research findings of the paper reveal an interesting fact. It shows that at present collision is the main cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh. In addition, a completely new research finding of this paper is that a considerable percentage of vessels are sunk under water instantly after the occurrence of accidents. It thus reveals the actual reason for the high percentage of fatality by waterway accidents. 63

9 7. Concluding Remarks 7.1. Recommendations Uddin, Newaz, Rabbi & Pervaz Considering the importance of waterway transportation system and to ensure safety, it is essential to take immediate steps for mitigating the number of waterway accidents in Bangladesh. On the basis of the above study some recommendations for the development of waterway safety condition can be outlined as: Foggy and hazy weather condition should be handled carefully to reduce the accidents due to the collision. The searchlight and siren of the vessels should be checked on regular basis to perform their functions effectively. An adequate amount of navigational aids and other relevant signs & markings should be mounted on the required locations along the waterway routes. Enforcement should be made stricter and applied effectively to stop moving the vessels during bad weather condition. The loading capacity of all the vessels should be checked prior to any voyage to prevent overloading. The Passenger counting system may be applied inside the passenger vessels. All the vessels should be designed and constructed by skilled naval architects. The overall fitness of all vessels should be checked regularly. Availability of adequate amount of life-saving appliances should be ensured on all the vessels to save human lives during emergency situations. The regular training program should be arranged for the vessel masters and crews. Their competence and skill should be examined on regular basis. Safety awareness campaign and distribution of leaflet and booklet containing waterway transportation safety messages for all people can be arranged by the regulatory bodies. Some advertisement and drama containing awareness about waterway safety can be shown frequently in the media channels. Immediate steps should be taken for all the unregistered vessels to be under the registration process; so that, enforcement can be applied strictly to all the vessels in the inland waterways of Bangladesh Effective waterway accident investigations and analysis should be carried out so that the actual cause of the accident can be found out. Legitimate funding support should be provided to carry out accident investigation and research so that the recommendations can be implemented Conclusion Bangladesh experienced lots of disastrous waterway accidents due to overloading and inclement weather for the last few decades in which several thousand people died. So, a belief among the general people of Bangladesh has grown that the main causes of waterway accidents in Bangladesh are overloading and inclement weather. But the accidents of last few years analyzed in this paper shows that the major cause of waterway accidents in Bangladesh is the collision. So, this will change the belief among the people about the major cause of inland waterway accidents in Bangladesh. Moreover, this study shows that a considerable proportion of vessels sink under water ultimately after the occurrence of accidents. This is a new research finding from the analysis of accidents in the inland waterways of Bangladesh. It indicates that the design and construction procedure of the vessels is not standard. It also indicates that the vessels move in overloaded condition and also during bad 64

10 weather. So the Government and the law enforcing authorities should take necessary initiatives to ensure safety in the inland waterway of Bangladesh. For the lack of adequate data, it was not possible to make a comprehensive analysis in this paper. This is a limitation of the paper. However, the in-depth analysis of each and every cause of inland waterway accident in Bangladesh on the basis of available data may be subject to further research. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the Director General, Department of Shipping (DOS) of Bangladesh for his passionate support by providing waterway accident data and other information related to the study. References Awal, Z.I. 2007, A Study on Inland Water Transport Accidents in Bangladesh: Experience of a Decade ( ), International Journal of Small Craft Technology, Vol. 149, part B2, Pp Awal, Z.I., Islam, M.R. and Hoque, M.M. 2010, Collision of marine vehicles in Bangladesh: a study on accident characteristics, Journal of Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 19, No. 5, Pp Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority 2017, About Us, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, viewed 20 May 2017, < a0a9961c793c/aboutus>. Baten, A.S.M.A. 2004, Internal Water Transportation System: Safety of Inland Passenger Vessels, Individual Research Paper, National Defense Course, National Defense College, Dhaka. Chowdhury, A.S. 2005, Waterway Accident Characteristics Assessment and Information System Development, Master of Engineering Thesis, Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, Dhaka. Islam, M.R., Rahaman, M.M. and Degiuli, N. 2015, Investigation of the Causes of Maritime Accidents in the Inland Waterways of Bangladesh, Brodogradnja/Shipbuilding Journal, Vol. 66, No.1, Pp Khalil, G.M. and Tarafder, M.S. 2004, Ferry Disasters in the Rivers of Bangladesh: Some Remedial Measures, The Journal of National Oceanographic and Maritime Institute, Vol. 21, No. 2, Pp