Bangladesh pilgrim boat tragedy demise toll hits 61 | World News

Rescuers and navy divers recovered 10 our bodies Tuesday after a ship overloaded with non secular pilgrims capsized in Bangladesh, police stated, taking the demise toll to 61 as anxious family waited for information of a number of individuals who had been nonetheless lacking. The incident on Sunday close to the northern city of Boda was the deadliest in years within the South Asian nation, which is crisscrossed by rivers the place overcrowding on aged vessels is widespread.

Seventeen of these killed had been youngsters, authorities stated, with video footage suggesting some had been as younger as round 4 years outdated.

The small vessel on its solution to a well-liked temple flipped over in a river as onlookers screamed from the shore, in horrific scenes captured on cellphones.

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Boda police chief Sujay Kumar Roy stated rescue employees together with firefighters, navy divers and villagers had been trying to find miles downstream on the Karotoa River, the place the tragedy occurred.

The boat was carrying round 90 folks, of whom round 50 had been pilgrims on their solution to the centuries-old Hindu temple for a serious pageant, in keeping with police.

"We resumed the search this morning and rescuers discovered a couple of extra our bodies downstream and likewise beneath the water... Nonetheless a couple of extra persons are lacking," Roy instructed AFP.

Abdur Razzaque, a police inspector, stated no less than 30 of the useless had been girls.

"A committee has been shaped to probe the incident," he stated.

Dozens of family of the lacking folks had been nonetheless crowding the river financial institution on Tuesday, though most had left after authorities handed over their relations' our bodies.

"Three girls of my household had been lacking because the boat capsized," stated one distraught relative, Bikash Chandra, late on Monday.

"We discovered one within the morning round 10:00 am, who was rescued earlier. However I could not discover the opposite two but."

District police chief Sirajul Huda stated Monday the boat was carrying thrice its permitted capability.

"The boatman requested some folks to disembark in an effort to ease the weight-load. However nobody listened," he instructed AFP.

Cell phone footage aired by TV station Channel 24 confirmed the overcrowded boat all of a sudden flipping over, spilling the passengers into the muddy brown river.

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Dozens of individuals watching from the shore began shouting and screaming. The climate was calm on the time.

Hundreds of Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh go to the well-known Bodeshwari Temple yearly.

Sunday marked the beginning of Durga Puja, a serious Hindu pageant drawing giant crowds on the temple. Final December, round 40 folks perished when a packed three-storey ferry caught fireplace in southern Bangladesh.

A ferry sank in Dhaka in June 2020 after a collision with one other vessel, killing no less than 32 folks. And no less than 78 folks perished in 2015 when an overcrowded ship collided with a cargo vessel in a river west of the capital.