Fire likely from engine room caused launch tragedy

The fire that broke out at the MV Avijan-10 to have originated from its engine room.

Barguna, Dec 26 :  The fire that broke out at the MV Avijan-10 launch leaving scores of people dead, many injured and missing on Sugandha river in Jhalakathi district is suspected to have originated from its engine room, the head of a shipping ministry probe committee said on Sunday after preliminary findings.

“We are investigating the Jhalakathi launch fire incident closely and we have visited the launch several times. Primarily, we suspect that the fire erupted from the engine room and then spread across it for other reasons,” said Tofayel Hossain, who is the joint secretary of the shipping ministry.

Tofayel was talking to reporters after interviewing several eye witnesses of the tragedy at Barguna Circuit House.

“The probe is still going on so we can’t provide any concrete information now. But we are trying our best to unearth the reason,” he said.

So far, we failed to talk to any staff of the launch, he added.

Earlier, in the day, a case was filed with Barguna Chief Judicial Magistrate Court against the owner of MV Avijan-10 Hamjalal Sheikh and 24 others in connection with the deadly fire in the launch that left 41 people dead and many more injured and missing.

Advocate Nazmul Islam Nasir, chairman of Baliatoli union parisahd of Barguna district, filed the case with the court on Sunday.

Barguna Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohammad Mahbub Alam accepted the case and asked the police station concerned to take the complaint as a ‘First Information Report (FIR)’, said administrative official of the court Akhter Hossain.

Meanwhile, the search drive in the Sugandha River was going on for the 3rd consecutive day on Sunday for tracing those who went missing following the massive fire on Friday.

The divers from local fire service and Coast Guard resumed the search operation on Saturday morning and it is still continuing, said Khalulur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station in Jhalakathi district.

“No new body was recovered from the river till the filing of this report around 11 am,” he said.

Besides, the control room, set up by the local administration, listed the names of 25 missing people with information given by their relatives and family members.

Earlier, the bodies of 23 people were buried in a mass graveyard following a namaz-e-janaza in Barguna on Saturday.

The bodies were buried at Potkakhali mass graveyard in Sadar upazila around 12 pm.

The blaze broke out at 3am on Friday on the Barguna-bound launch carrying some 800 passengers from Dhaka and it engulfed the entire vessel within 10 minutes.

The death toll from the fire incident climbed to 41 on Saturday night. Besides, over 70 people suffered injuries and many of them are undergoing treatment at different hospitals, reports UNB.