COMMENT The fatal express boat accident on the mighty Rajang River in Sarawak on Tuesday was a tragedy waiting to happen. The state authorities, particularly the Sarawak River Board (SRB), must tell us why enforcement of river transport safety regulations continues to be ineffective.

It is of no help at all after the accident to hear Sarawak River Board chairperson Roland Sagah, who is also the deputy speaker of the state assembly, say there are no enforcement officers stationed at Bakun and Belaga where the accident occurred although SRB had asked for it. It is small consolation that he was quoted as saying: “After the tragedy, I will push for it.”

 

azlan Rivers feature prominently in the human geography of Sarawak thus it is important to ensure rivers are properly managed and are safe for people to use. The Rajang is Malaysia’s longest river and is also the second longest in Borneo. An estimated 600,000 people, or one out of every four persons, use the rivers in Sarawak for transport.

For this reason, the SRB was set up in 1993 tasked to manage the “development and improvement of the riverine transport system, control and regulation of river traffic, and implementation of safety measures, and river environment management.”

There was also a plan by SRB for the Sarawak Inland Waterway Transport System Survey launched in 2007 in collaboration with the United Nation Development Programme to fast-track a master plan and implementation by 2020.

Yet despite this, tragedy after tragedy continue unabated. What has happened to all these grandiose plans? Who is in charge?

Consider this. There are still more than 100 shipwrecks in the riverbed, yet lack of funds and murky water had hampered salvaging works. These wrecks pose dangers to river traffic.

NONE Two years ago the Rajang was strewn with logs and debris stretching for 50km to Sibu, posing a threat to both shipping and the environment. There is no assurance that another log-jam of this magnitude would not recur simply because we had not done something, anything about it.

A question hangs over the safety of the design of these express boats. Built out of metal, the hull is completely sealed and air-conditioned with few doors, much like a coffin. It is indeed fortunate that there were so few casualties this time.

Overloaded with twice the capacity

The express boat Kawan Mas was allowed to carry only 75 passengers but it was overloaded with more than twice its capacity when it hit a rock and capsized last Tuesday.

The tragedy happened at 8.45am at Tanjung Tukok Punyang Gian after leaving Belaga town. The Kawan Mas had set off earlier from Bakun and most of the passengers were mainly timber workers heading home to Kapit for the coming Gawai celebration.

It was the quick action of Belaga assemblyperson Liwan Lagang, who witnessed the boat capsizing from a helicopter as he was flying from Belaga to Kuching to attend the state legislative assembly sitting, that saved the day.

Treacherous rocks in the river also pose a threat. The SRB had spent RM9 million last year to blast away the boulders and protruding rocks at the Pelagus Rapids in the upper part of the Rajang River to reduce the danger for commercial express and boats to navigate its passageway recently. But the express boat that sank hit a rock in another area. So don’t blame the rock. The blame is on the shocking lack of enforcement.

BOB TEOH was commissioned by the UNDP to photo-document riverine communities along the Rajang up to near headwaters around Ulu Baleh in 2008.