Cairo: Picnics on the Nile, a favourite pastime for Egyptians and foreigners, have repeatedly ended in tragedies in recent years. In the aftermath of each unfortunate incident, Egyptian authorities promise measures to strengthen safety standards that apply to thousands of boats shuttling on the river. With complaints abounding about lax regulations and ill-maintained boats, there are serious doubts if any corrective action is coming through.
In July, several days after the country’s first elected civilian president took office, six people died when their boat capsized in the Nile in Cairo. The victims included an old man, his son and grandchild.
The boat, carrying 25 people on an excursion, hit a concrete column of a bridge off the Maspero area in central Cairo leaving it with a big hole, witnesses said. Nineteen people were rescued by passing boats, the witnesses said.
In November last year, a young girl drowned while having a ride on a speedboat in the Nile off Cairo. The accident occurred when the speedboat collided with a cruiser carrying 99 people, according to investigators. The speedboat was blamed for the collision.
In July 2010, nine schoolgirls died when their boat sank in the Nile off Maadi in southern Cairo. Investigations revealed that the boat was overloaded and operated without a licence. The boatman was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of negligence.
The situation is worse in areas outside Cairo, where inhabitants mainly use Nile ferryboats to transport goods from one river bank to the other. Around 20 people died in April last year when their bus slipped off a ferry into the river in the province of Beni Sueif in southern Egypt..
In 1997, 13 people died when a minibus caarying them fell off a ferry in the poor district of Imbaba near Cairo.
“The iron used in building these boats is scrap sold at cheap prices,” said Ishaq Shehata, an engineering professor of ship design. He added that 75 per cent of ferry boats plying the Nile are well past their lifespans. “Around 80 per cent of the accidents are due to the poor condition of boats, because scrap iron cannot resist waves. In addition, these boats do not observe safety standards,” Shehata said.
Local officials say that the boats are usually checked before they and their operators are licensed. They concede that some boats, mainly in rural areas, get down to business without licences.
“The Nile boats are supervised and licensed by the [governmental] Higher Authority for Nile Protection and the Water Police,” said the Giza Governor Ali Abdul Rahman. “But some boats are operated on the Nile wihtout compliance with the regulations,” he added in recent press remarks. “These boats should be stopped and their operators penalised so as to head off new catastrophes for innocent people whose only mistake is that they are interested in having a ride on the Nile.”
Flashback
Six people died in July when their boat capsized in the Nile near Cairo.
Twenty people died in April last year when their bus slipped off a ferry into the river in the southern province of Beni Sueif.
Nine schoolgirls on a fun trip died in July 2010 when their boat sank into the Nile off Maadi in southern Cairo.
In 1997, 13 people died when a microbus caarying them slipped off a ferry off Imbaba near Cairo.
