When the Perumon Railway accident claimed 106 lives, the Railways claimed that the accident was the result of a tornado virtually lifting the bogies off the track. The Railway official, who conducted the inquiry, even distorted testimony of witnesses, to arrive at the conclusion. Though the railways was forced to order a re-investigation under public protest, the finding did not change. However, any school boy in Kerala knows that tornadoes do not occur in Kerala.
The investigations into the boat tragedy at Thekkady also seems to be taking similar course. The Chief Inspector of Boats have come up with the strange conclusion that one of the possible reasons for the tilting of the boat could be wind. Well Thekkady is not known for tornadoes or hurricanes. What sort of boat it would have been, if it would roll over if a strong wind hits it? We have to wait to seen whether the Collector, who has received the report, will accept this finding and what sort of story the Crime Branch would come up with. Then only will we know whether the official are “preparing the ground” for the judicial enquiry.
Anyway, something seems to be amiss about the whole affair. Five Ministers rushed to the spot on hearing about the accident. (This was indeed not an exercise to curry favour with voters, for they knew most of the victims were from outside the State and that the Keralites would forget the accident before the next elections.) Of them, the Water Resources Minister was equipped with the information that the boat had the clearance of the Inspector of Boats. The very same authority is now saying that the boat could have met with the accident because of winds.
Now, see this report which says that the boat neither had a fitness certificate or insurance.
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It seems that Mr. M.Mathew, Chief Boat Inspector of Kerala has no knowledge about boats.
It looks like that the Boat in question, Jalakanyaka was badly designed. Any craft, aircraft or sea / water craft have to be balanced with it’s Centre of Gravity within safety limits. In case of any imbalance, the craft has to be balanced with dummy weights, usually sand bags.
From the pictures, the boat looks like a single deck boat fitted with a wider upper deck. The lower deck weight of a Double Decker Bus is more than that of a single deck bus to balance it’s centre of gravity. The accident cause is definitely unsafe position of Centre of Gravity.
KTDC and its Chairman should immediately answer who placed the order for Jalakanyaka, what were the design parameters, the tendering process, the details about the manufacturer and their credentials.
Further, all boat crew in Kerala should be adequately trained in safety measures. Is there a Boat Driving School in Kerala? If not one should be established immediately.
Further suggestions from experts in this field are expected.
The October 1 issue of the Kochi edition of Malayala Manorama reported in two sentences at the bottom of its 11th page, that 58 bodies have been recovered from the boat-capsize tragedy in Bagmathi River (Bihar); and that 50 more are to be recovered. The incident had occurred two days ago.
Compare this with the Thekkady coverage.
Proximity determines news value.
The Thattekkad tragedy in which 15 children were lost, was a direct result of criminal negligence and carelessness by the Catholic school. Cowards before the Catholic Church, neither Left, Right nor the media dared to highlight the issue. The Boat owner was paid to own up the crime.
As with Abhaya, Thattekkad might now come under the scanner now, hopefully.
Today’s Kalakaumudi Daily from Mumbai published a report confirming what I wrote in this coloumn on 2nd October. Head of the Department Dr. S.K. Pyarilal has confirmed that the Centre of Gravity of the Boat is not positioned correctly.
The report must have appeared in Kerala editions of Kerala Kaumudi also, either today or yesterday.
Yes, the fact is that the boat would not have turned over for any of the three reasons cited (strong winds, passengers moving to one side or the driver taking a sharp turn) unless there was design/manufacturing defect. The boat was also overloaded and that increases the risk.
The poor driver and laskar are being victimised for the fault of higher-ups in the KTDC. They themselves would not have run a black-marketing in tickets on their own. They cannot be held responsible for running a defective boat. Temporary workers have hardly any say in such matters and hence there guilt is nominal.
Finally, Shri M. Mathews, Chief Boat Inspector, who claimed he did not know anything about boats, is arrested. However, a mechanical engineer saying he did not know what is Centre of Gravity is unbelievable.
As a next step, Mr. Cherian Philip should be questioned how KTDC designed a faulty Double Decker boat and handed over it to an unknown comapny by name Vignesh Marine Technical Services, Chennai and the reason thereof.