Tragedy has struck again, this time on a catamaran boat off Sabah.

Now the police have detained the owner, the skipper and a crewman for investigation. So far, two passengers are confirmed dead while six others are still missing.

By all means investigate, but I think it will not compensate for the mental anguish of those who have suffered the ordeal or bring back the lives of those who have perished.

I remember not long ago there was a Pulau Tioman ferry fire which took a few lives as well. We were told in that incident the crews allegedly abandoned the passengers to fend for themselves when the ferry was in flames.

Without fail, we can see the common thread running through all these unfortunate incidents - no clear standard operating procedure (SOP), lack of professionalism and training among the crews, no safety precautions, overloading, non-compliance with regulations, and no clear search and rescue (SAR) response time and procedures.

Why are we such a cowboy country doing things the ‘chin chai’ way?

We can look at this problem in so many ways.

First, maybe there are no proper regulations governing ferry services at sea.

Second, even if regulations exist, maybe no one is really aware of them.

Third, the operators don’t care because no one is enforcing the regulations anyway.

Let’s be realistic; I think Malaysia is far from being a developed country. We do not have professional regulators, enforcers, owners/operators and rescuers. We leave it to chance and the whims of owners/operators and their half-baked skippers.

Minister Nazri Aziz may try very hard to promote tourism but sometimes it is incidents like these that has done the damage to our country.