BIWTA unable to salvage sunken vessel from Gabkhan channel

BIWTA sources said they have marked the vessel under about 40 feet water and kept hoisted red flags to identify the spot.

ÊBIWTA Deputy Director Md Shahjol Huq acknowledged yesterday it does not have equipment to salvage the vessel. By this time most parts of the sunken vessel have been covered with mud and sand carried by water and it is beyond BIWTA's capacity to tug it ashore, he said.

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The only way to open the channel for navigation is to make the channel at that point wider and deeper by dredging, he said.

BIWTA sources said only small launches can now cross the area cautiously and many large vessels are anchored at Kawkhali and Jhalakati, waiting to cross the channel.

Other sources said, if oil tankers can not ply the channel a fuel and power crisis will be created in the southwestern districts.

Mentionably, the ECNEC (Executive Committee of National Economic Council) last month approved a project to expand the channel. Work on the project will start next month, sources said.

Barisal Port Officer Saiful Islam said there is no alternative to expansion and dredging of the channel as this is the lone waterway to go to ports in Khunla and other areas of the country.

CV Trishna-1, bound for Mongla port with clinker for Bashundhara Cement Factory from Chittagong, sank in the channel near the Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge Thursday afternoon when it was hit by oil tanker OT Jamuna. Laskar Rabiul Islam, 40, one of its 12 crew, is missing since then.