Passengers who were onboard the MV Sabanto when it crashed into the Supenaam Ferry Stelling on Tuesday evening, said everyone “panicked” because they were not sure what was happening.
They were even more horrified after hearing reports that the vessel would have headed back to Parika and they would have had to join the MV Malali to bring them back to Supenaam.
The passengers were told that three of the beams from the loading ramp and the two legs that hold up the ramp were damaged. One hour later, they heaved a sigh of relief when the ramp was fixed and they were able to disembark.
A statement from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure said that there were no injuries as a result of the accident.
“However, due to the damage caused, the MV Sabanto will be out of service until further notice. The MV Malali and MV Makouria will instead provide service for the Parika to Supenaam route, and vice versa.
The Ministry said too that the service will occur as per normal, commencing at 5:00am. It said too that a team from the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD) has been deployed to assess the damage.
The owner of a truck who was onboard the vessel at the time, said that on impact, another truck rolled forward and damaged the lights and bumper of a car.
He recalled that the vessel started to moor normally and when it was about to “reach in, it made a ‘heavy headway’ and it rushed straight into the stelling very fast.”
He learnt that the repairs would take about two weeks and said that already, drivers of large trucks were feeling the “punishment.”
The MV Malali made the scheduled 5 am run yesterday but the driver said that the big trucks cannot board that. As such, they have parked until they can make a decision about whether they should discharge their cargo into smaller trucks to continue their business.
The truck owner said the ferry left more than one hour later than the scheduled 4 pm departure that afternoon because of the tide. He said he heard that the collision was as a result of an engine failure.
“I am on this ferry every day and I know that when something like that happen, it is the engine.”
He explained that the ferry works with a “telegraph system, where information is transferred between the wheel house [for the captain] and the engine room [for engineers].”
According to him, “the engineers would direct the captain how to moor and I believed that is where the mix up happen.”
Another eyewitness who had gone to the stelling to pick up his five-year-old daughter and her grandmother, recalled that the captain “turned slowly and while coming into the stelling he started to drive more fast.”
The man said “after I hear the boat advance someone tell me run and I run and right after that the boat crash into the ramp.”
He said the workers at the stelling dropped the door and had to “put some irons back in place so the vehicles could come out.”
