Saturday, September 23, 2006

Fishermen

Estimates of fishermen lost in the Bay of Bengal in this week's sudden depression (was it really that sudden? Weather was also crappy the week before...) have ranged anywhere from several hundred to three or even four thousand.

Hundreds of fishing trawlers are lost.

These guys bring in the fish that feeds many people in Bangladesh.

How big are these trawlers? Do they have communication gear? Did anyone ever get any warning? Were they too far out to make it back on time?

A very sad story, indeed. Ok, so you can't fight weather, but can't more be done in the future to minimize risks to these brave souls? We see the Atlantic hurricanes being tracked for days and days. Are the BoB ones more sudden?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The usual comes to mind - lack of funding, lack of resources .....

Or is it that no one has given the matter of the safety of these fishermen any thought? I would think that the fishermen themselves should have some sort of trade association or organisation of their own, you know like the BGMEA?

ulysses said...

Something worth looking into. With so many NGOs and so many development projects (and dollars) I would hope these guys would have credited a closer look from someone?

Don't know of any trade association, though.