10 more bodies in ferry disaster found

At least 10 more bodies from Friday's ferry disaster in the river Meghna in the southern Bangladeshi district of Chadpur were recovered yesterday downstream in neighbouring Munshiganj district.

With these, the death toll from the worst ferry disaster has risen to 338. Munshiganj police said they recovered the 10 bodies lying on the riverbank and buried the decomposed bodies immediately. More bodies might be found floating in the Meghna river, a police official said.

The naval ship, BSN Tamjeed, which is still anchored at Satnal, the place of the disaster, is learnt to have sent a team to that area downstream to search for more bodies, he added.

Meanwhile, with nearly 250 badly decomposed bodies piled on its lower deck, the "vessel of death", MV Rahman, moved from village to village but very few bodies were handed over to relatives yesterday.

A reporter covering the incident said thousands of villagers gathered at Dalia, Kalishuri, Keshabpur, Gazimgit, Narainpur, Mishi, Kalaiya, Doshmina, Bandshbaria and in seven other places, but did not try to identify the badly decomposed bodies – stacked one on top of the other.

He said at Kalaiya under Baufal sub-district, some 50 km off Patuakhali, about 3,000 people gathered when the vessel arrived there at around 11am. Waiting relatives, villagers and local public representatives, including Shahidul Alam Talukdar, MP, were shocked to see the condition of the bodies and did not claim any. Only two bodies identified at Satnal earlier and kept inside a wooden coffin were unloaded.

Angry relatives told him that the bodies were beyond identification since they were badly decomposed and haphazardly stacked. Talukdar wondered how the bodies could be left in such a condition.

Last Monday, when MV Rahman was getting ready to transport 177 decomposed bodies to Patuakhali area, two more mechanised boats full of decomposed bodies arrived and dumped them in the vessel. The "vessel of death" then headed for a remote island called Rangabali in the bay. The unclaimed bodies were later buried in a mass grave in Rangabali.

Mohammed Belal Hossain from Baufal said he had gone to the vessel to look for his cousin but, seeing the decomposed bodies and the way they had been kept, he did not dare go near them.

"They stacked the bodies like bricks and many others were lying around. The stench was unbearable. Who can make his way through those bodies to look for relatives?" he asked.

Talukdar said all the people in Kalaiya Bazar wanted to supply ice to preserve the bodies, but abandoned the idea when they saw the degree of decomposition. "There were more than 200 badly decomposed bodies and it is not an easy task to handle such a large number."

Fokran Munshi, manager of Kalaiya launch terminal, said people in the area were very angry at the way the dead had been taken care of. "They did not take any action because the police were here and the local Member of Parliament was present."

Mohammed Moniruzzaman, a security man of a passenger vessel, said there were about 10 wooden coffins beside piles of the rotting human bodies. The dead inside the coffins had already been identified at the site where MV Salauddin-2 sank on May 3.