safety issue :Assam boat mishap toll may cross 200, bodies washed away

Local authorities in western Assam's Dhubri town fear the death toll in Monday's boat mishap on river Brahmaputra may cross the 200 mark. The ill-fated double-decker boat had a carrying capacity of 250 passengers but reportedly had some 500 on board.

The official body count,

however, stood at 45 till 8am on Tuesday. For the security forces, the 'bigger challenge' now is to ascertain the number of dead since locals had taken the bodies of their kin away before rescue teams could arrive on the scene. "Overloading is normal in these parts," said Taleb Ali, 42, who swam to safety and saved four others.
"There were at least 500 people on the boat, and I was lucky to have been on the upper deck. Most of the people were in the cage-like lower deck and I fear they were trapped. The death toll will cross 200," he said from Madhertari, nearest to the spot where the boat caught a cyclonic storm and "broke into three pieces".
According to disaster management principal secretary Vinod K Pipersenia, inclement weather was hampering the rescue and body recovery operations.
"The police, army, Border Security Force's water wing and National Disaster Relief Force personnel are at work. It has still not been possible to ascertain how many died, but we fear bodies are still trapped in the wreckage of the boat on the riverbed while many are likely to have been washed away toward Bangladesh," he told HT on Tuesday.
The challenge being faced by rescue teams and district authorities, Pipersenia added, was getting the bodies from local people.
"The mishap happened barely 50 metres from the bank, and local people beat the rescue teams to the bodies and took their kin's home possibly for the final rites."
The boat had set sail from Dhubri town, 287km west of Guwahati on the northern bank of river Brahmaputra in the afternoon.
"It was heading southeast to Hatsinghimari, a three-hour trip," said Dhubri superintendent of police Pradip Kumar Saloi.
The boat caught the cyclonic storm around 5pm.
In Guwahati, the Tarun Gogoi government ordered a probe into the incident late Monday night with a view to regulating the number of passengers such motorized double-decker ferries and country boats can carry.
"Unlike trains or buses, these boats hardly follow ticketing system to keep track of how many passengers they carry. Our intention is to regulate them," a government spokesman said.
Dhubri police said they have issued a search warrant for the owner of the boat, one Md Sanu Bepari, who has been absconding since the news of the mishap broke out.
Meanwhile, all the 18 legislators of All India United Democratic Front and 10 of Asom Gana Parishad have decided to donate one month's salary for the family members of the boat mishap victims.
The Assam government too has announced monetary benefits for the kin of the victims while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has offered relief from his fund.