With $2.1m worth of fertilizer lost when his truck went overboard at the Adventure stelling on Tuesday, John Walcott is wondering who will compensate him for his loss.
The driver of the truck narrowly escaped what could have been a watery grave when the vehicle, laden with bags of fertilizer, plunged into the Essequibo River
Christopher Brown, who was employed by Walcott, was driving the truck from the Adventure stelling onto the MV Torani with 300 bags of fertilizer for Parika.
Reports said Brown was trying to drive the vehicle over some planks. However, the heavy cargo he was transporting slipped towards the eastern gangway which was protected with a large chain. He tried desperately to move the truck away from the gangway chain, but the back wheel kept spinning continuously on the metal floor of the ferry. The weight of the truck kept forcing it backwards resulting in the chain bursting. Brown lost the battle and the vehicle plunged into the river along with the 300 bags of fertilizers which are now lying on the Essequibo river bed. Brown managed to escape from the truck, which has since been salvaged.
The truck was expected to return to the Essequibo Coast with rice for the Caricom Rice Mills.
Walcott is now worried as to who will cover his losses. Although the truck is insured, he has no guarantee that the insurance company will cover all his expenses. The fertilizer had a total value of $2.1M and the truck is worth $5 million.
Walcott along with many other onlookers said if the stelling had been a little more secure Tuesday’s mishap could have been avoided.
Meanwhile, the truck was salvaged from the river with the assistance from another boat and two crane operators attached to the Transport and Harbours Department (T&HD). Despite the incident operations for that day continued and when Stabroek News visited the stelling on Wednesday, T&HD workers were busy loading the same MV Torani to transport goods and passengers to Parika.
For more than 50 years, the stelling at Adventure has been used to transport goods to Parika and other parts of Guyana. However its age has been showing. Over the years, the stelling’s old planks have steadily been replaced by new ones.
Stabroek News was told that any vehicle being loaded onto a ferry at the Adventure Stelling should have a maximum weight of 15 tonnes; the stelling cannot at this time withstand anymore.
The Adventure Stelling was to be replaced by a modern stelling costing $574 million at Good Hope. However, work on that ceased after a test revealed that it has flaws. During the test months ago it was revealed that the ramp was not properly built, and a truck which was being driven onto a ferry plunged into the river. The flaws have not yet been rectified.
On Wednesday, passengers and drivers pleaded with the relevant authorities to look into the matter before something worse occurs. T&HD officials have said that the new stelling will be in operation soon.
