2009 Thekkady boat disaster

Thekkady boat tragedy

The Jalakanyaka, listing, is in a red square
Zoomed image of tilted boat
Location	Thekkady
Date	30 September 2009
Passengers & Crew	82
Fatalities	45
Boat Name	Jalakanyaka

The Thekkady boat disaster occurred on September 30 2009, when the double-decker passenger boat Jalakanyaka sank in Lake Thekkady, Periyar National Park, Kerala, India. When the boat capsized, 45 tourists died, most of them from Delhi and Kolkata. A total of 82 people were on the boat.. The boat's steerman, Victor Sameul, and another crew member were arrested on 5 October.

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Details

The fibreglass double-decker sight-seeing boat Jala Kanyaka, operated by the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC), made daily sight-seeing trips in the Mullaperiyar reservoir in Idukki. The boat was first commissioned on August 17 2009.

The boat set off from a landing at 4:30 p.m. and capsized 7 km away, at approximately 5 p.m. on 30 September 2009. It capsized in one of the deepest parts of the reservoir, in an area around 100m deep.

Several survivors swam to safety. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/34-drown-as-boat-capsizes-in-Kerala/articleshow/5074258.cms

Rescue

Location of Thekkady in Kerala, India

The surrounding area has wild animals, including elephants, and is within the 777 sq km Periyar Tiger Reserve.

By 8 p.m, a rescue team recovered 26 bodies, and two survivors. Initial rescue operations were completed by local government officials and the public before the state and federal government crews arrived. Rescue operations were hampered by the spreading darkness and the distance from the boat jetty. None of the initial rescue boats had divers, however a team of divers from Indian Navy were assigned to help the rescue operation 5–6 hours later. A team of 40-50 navy divers were rushed to the spot from the Southern Naval Command at Kochi. On 3 October, the search for bodies was still ongoing.

Four bodies were noted as missing until 3 October, when three were recovered by Navy divers: four-and-a-half-year-old Aishwarya and her mother Senthilkumari, from Bangalore, and Apoorva, 16, from Hyderabad. A Navy helicopter spotted the body of Aishwarya first, and her mother was found nearby. Their bodies were taken to the primary health centre at Kumaly and later flown to Chennai. The final missing passenger, Apoorva’s 19 year old brother Abhilash, was discovered on the evening of October 3 by an underwater camera, but could not be recovered until October 4, due to bad weather.

Twenty people, mostly on the upper deck, were rescued by boats sent by KTDC, the Forest Department, and Tamil Nadu Public Works Department.

Both State and National government acted, asking defence establishments in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to launch rescue attempts. Navy divers from Kochi were forced to travel overland, after their helicopter, sent to locate the victims, was turned back by bad weather.

Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the Home and Tourism Minister of Kerala and, and N. K. Premachandran, the minister for Water Resources, arrived in Thekkady late at night and they coordinated rescue operations according to press reports. It is unclear why ministers were coordinating rescue operations rather than delegating to trained professionals.

Rescue Operations

Investigations

Originally, KTDC claimed that there were 74 passengers, but police findings showed 87 passengers; some confusion in the numbers was caused by some survivors leaving the scene without reporting to the police.

The fatalities consists mostly of women, mainly from outside Kerala. The dead included people from Tamil Nadu, Delhi and West Bengal; more than 50 belonged to a group from Karnataka, who had come in a tourist bus to Thekkady as part of a tour of Kerala.

Boat Passengers

Preliminary reports stated that the accident occurred when a large number of passengers rushed to one side of the boat to see a herd of bison which came out of the forest habitat to the lake side. The sudden movement caused the boat to capsize, and all of the passengers were thrown into the water.

Later, this initial report was challenged when some of the rescued tourists reported structural problems with the boat, saying that it was tilted throughout the trip, for about 30 minutes. Then at one point the boat took a sharp turn, overturned and capsized.

The boat was owned and operated by the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation. The government has been blamed for not privatizing these boats, for not enforcing safety precautions and for not having efficient disaster recovery plans. The crew of the boat, driver and helper escaped the incident. The passengers were not provided a life jacket before the trip, and there were no lifeguards.

The Pioneer newspaper of Dehli reported widespread complaints against both Kerala Government and KTDC trying to "absolve themselves of the guilt by putting the entire blame on the boat employees."

The Crime Branch’s probe report stated that overloading of the boat and negligence on the driver’s part caused the tragedy.

Aftermath

On 5 October, the steerman Victor Samuel (alias Betty), and one other crew member, Aneesh (also written Anish), were arrested. They will appear before a magistrate at Peerumade in Idukki district later, police said. Samuel was hospitalized in Theni after the accident, but following treatment the Crime Branch took him back to the accident location and collected evidence.

The Government of Kerala ordered a judical inquiry into the boat tragedy. Under questioning, Anish revealed that additional tourists were accommodated on the upper deck, contradicting Samuel, who claimed that the sudden movement of tourists was the cause. Preliminary inquiries revealed that the boat was overloaded, with 12 more than its capacity of 75. The police cited driver “carelessness”, that he “suddenly turned the boat to the right, after the tourists sighted the wild animals”, which lead to the imbalance. Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) PA Wilson said that "the unwarranted act of driver Victor Samuel [...] swerving the boat while at high speed caused the tragedy".

Reports suggested that the boat had a structural imbalance causing it to list to one side. Justice K Narayana Kurup, who had investigated the previous Thattekkad boat tragedy in which 18 lives were lost, said that there may be "some manufacturing defect in the boat.”, and the police stated that the vessel "had inherent problems". The boat was recovered and brought to the dock in Thekkady.

A Crime Branch official said that the survivors testimonies would also be considered before submitting a final report. The Crime Branch of Kottyam led by the Superintendent of Police collected evidence, and were also seeking details from the survivors from outside Kerala.

The driver was charged with causing death unintentionally. Crime Branch sources said that the arrested will be produced before the Magistrate Court at Peerumade, in the evening.

Forensic experts held a scene reconstruction experiment. The head of the forensic scientists’ team, K Mohanan, said that a clear picture would only emerge after detailed examinations, planned for Monday.

Two of the dead, Abhilash and Apoorva from Hyderabad, were handed over to the relatives by 10.30 p.m. on Sunday. Their parents Sunnur and Malathy survived the accident.

The government would pay the expenses for sending the bodies of the deceased to their home states and said that 5 lakhs Rs. would be provided to the next kin of each of the dead in the accident.

Criticism

Oommen Chandy, Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly, criticized the ongoing Crime Branch probe, alleging an attempt to make the steersman a scapegoat. "an attempt is on to put the blame and responsibility of the accident on the steersman," Chandy said.

Chandry told reporters that, instead of a judicial probe, the government should appoint an expert committee headed by a judicial officer.

He urged Chairman Cherian Philip to consider quitting his post. "Instead of supervising the rescue operations at Thekkady, Philip chose to be part of' Human Chain', a political function of CPI-M, he said.

The Decclan Herald said that the accident was "a result of sheer negligence", and the Express Buzz said it was "faulty from the start", with excess passengers on unsecured plastic chairs.

The current government has also been criticized for not making swimming a mandatory skill in primary school and for not privatizing the boats.

Subsequent Safety Concerns

At a meeting on 5 October, state Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan announced that all boats at tourist destinations in Kerala would undergo a safety check. “This would be done in the next 10 days and once we receive the report we would consider floating a law in this regard,” Balakrishnan said after the meeting with Forests Minister Binoy Viswam and Minister of Irrigation N.K. Premachandran. They also decided that from now on, all those under the age of 15 must wear a life jacket, and those over 15 choosing not to wear jackets must provide a reason. They announced plans to have a life guard for every 25 boat passengers, and a rescue boat with medical facilities to be available at each boat destination.