Forest dept team to visit Sundarbans river where coal ship sank

A team of forest department today will visit Harbaria point of Passur river of the Sundarbans where a cargo vessel with 775 tonnes of coal capsized Saturday night.

The team is on their way to the spot and after their visit, they will submit a report on it, Mahmudul Hasan, divisional forest officer (east), told our Bagerhat correspondent this morning.

Meanwhile, three general diaries (GDs) were filed by the owner and master of the cargo vessel and the forest department with Mongla Police Station in this connection.

The owner of the vessel MV Bilash claimed that he incurred Tk 1 crore loss due to the incident, the correspondent said.

The cargo vessel, heading for Dhaka's Mirpur, sank at Harbaria anchor-5.

Harbaria 6 is an outer anchorage area near the Harbaria Eco Park Station. On both sides of the river are the Sundarbans.

Visiting the area yesterday afternoon The Daily Star found that the char was not marked.

"The load of the vessel was within its capacity. It seems the incident was caused by crew ignorance. The Passur river is a constantly changing terrain with submerged chars," HM Waliullah, harbour master of Mongla port, told The Daily Star yesterday.

He added that the vessel ran aground around 10:00pm and sank hours later.