Bukoba (ship)
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The Bukoba was a ferry in regular service on the Lake Victoria in East Africa , the May 21, 1996 on a trip from Bukoba to Mwanza capsized and sank later, with between 500 and 1,000 people were killed. It was the largest ship accident in East Africa to date and one of the largest accidents on freshwater lakes.
Data
The Bukoba ran liner services between the Tanzanian ports of Mwanza and Bukoba, and also in cross-border traffic with Port Bell near Kampala / Uganda and Kisumu / Kenya . Between these endpoints, several other ports were also approached as intermediate stations. The owner of the ship named after the city in Tanzania was Tanzania Railways (TRC). The ship was approved at the time by the British colonial authorities for 433 passengers in three classes and a cargo tonnage of 55 tons.
Before the disaster
the initial situation
In the north-west of Tanzania there were no asphalt roads in 1996, so that the bus journey from Bukoba to Mwanza took more than twelve hours (often considerably more) on bad roads in barely maintained buses. Therefore, the majority of travelers used the ferry for this route, which was just as long on the way, but seemed much safer and more comfortable.
Since there were no valid legal safety regulations in Tanzania, no official inspections of the ship had been carried out for years. There was no official maintenance schedule . There wasn't even a competent inland shipping authority to check this. The ship carried only a small number of life jackets (between 100 and 200) which, even under normal circumstances, would not have been sufficient for the permitted number of passengers. The lifeboats and life rafts had not been serviced for years, and a rescue exercise with the ship's crew had also not taken place for years. The lifeboats did not have space for all passengers.
According to Tanzanian law, there was no compulsory insurance for ships, so the TRC had neither taken out insurance for the ship itself nor liability insurance for passengers or cargo .
On April 30, 1996 the Bukoba was temporarily shut down due to various technical problems, this was announced by the TRC without giving details in a press release on the same day.
The stability of the ship seemed to be a major problem. Many travelers have reported repeatedly that the ship regularly with substantial list wrong, at least in the years after the 1994th
Belgian technicians carried out various tests at the beginning of May with the ballast tanks , which usually contain 100 tons of water in the keel of the ship, which were completely emptied. It is unclear whether the ballast tanks were then correctly refilled.
The Victoria , which was supposed to carry out the trip, was canceled at short notice due to the need for repairs, so the Bukoba was used again.
The last ride
The ship left Bukoba at 10 p.m. local time on May 20, 1996 with about 300 passengers on board. About as many passengers were turned away in Bukoba even though they had valid tickets. Since the capacity of the originally planned Victoria was significantly higher than that of the Bukoba , more tickets had been sold accordingly . Most of the rejected people then drove to Kemondo Bay, a pier just 20 km south of Bukoba, by truck , bus or taxi . When the ship docked there, hundreds apparently streamed on board unhindered.
The first and second class passenger lists contained the names of 443 passengers, no passenger list was kept for the third class. On the basis of the shipping documents, 8.5 tons of freight (mostly bananas ) were loaded.
The disaster on May 21, 1996
Capsizing
According to the survivors, the ship already had a significant list to starboard when it left Kemondo Bay . About 30 kilometers from Mwanza, the list increased considerably, so the crew asked the passengers to quickly move to the port side of the ship. A few minutes later the ship capsized to port and drifted keel up. Most of the passengers and crew were locked in the ship.
Rescue and recovery
About an hour after the disaster, the first ships to rescue the castaways arrived. About 100 people were saved alive from the water. Various groups of survivors trapped in the ship's hull floating up the keel gave knock signals to draw attention to themselves. A group of TRC workers first welded a hole in the hull from which two people could be rescued. After a second hole had been welded around 3:00 p.m., the ship sank very quickly to a depth of 25 meters without any other trapped people being rescued.
According to contradicting reports, between 100 and 120 people were rescued, and a significant number of those rescued were seriously injured.
Only two days later did divers from South Africa and Kenya arrive. These could only help to recover the corpses. It turned out that the Tanzanian Navy had only eleven diving equipment and no portable compressor (for filling up the compressed air cylinders).
The official final report found that there were 663 people on board, 563 of whom were killed. At the same time, another official report reported 112 rescued people. However, since there were usually about as many travelers in 3rd class as in 1st and 2nd class combined, about 900 passengers and about 40 crew members must be assumed. A report by the Red Cross therefore assumed around 800 victims.
Funeral services
The then President of Tanzania Ali Hassan Mwinyi , the then President of Zanzibar Salmin Amour and numerous members of the government took part in the official memorial service in the stadium in Mwanza . Around 180 bodies were recovered, of which only 25 were identified, the others - because they can no longer be identified - buried in mass graves.
consequences
Investigations and Negotiations
Just a few days after the accident, charges were brought against the captain Jumanne Rume, the head of the shipping department of the TRC, Clephas Magoge and seven other executives of the TRC, but these were dropped four weeks later.
The official investigation report of the Tanzanian government is only published in excerpts and does not come to a clear statement regarding the responsibility.
Safety measures
In 1999 the remaining 15 ships of the TRC were insured. In 2006 the East African Community decided in principle to set up an SAR center. The IMO supports a safety training program for seafarers on Lake Victoria.
Trivia
In the accident, al-Qaeda co- founder and deputy commander Abu Ubaida al-Banshiri who happened to be traveling along and was wanted by an international arrest warrant, was killed, so that various conspiracy theories emerged afterwards.
In the media, the ship was referred to as the "African Titanic ".
Since numerous corpses could no longer be recovered, the legend arose that the fish ate them. As a result, the residents of the entire region stopped buying fish for months, resulting in significant losses for fishermen and traders.