With no sign yesterday of any of the eight persons missing after Tuesday’s boat collision near Crab Falls, Mazaruni River, authorities have shifted their focus from rescue to recovery and Transport Minister Robeson Benn said plans were being finalised to set up an operations camp near the site of the mishap to locate the bodies.
Up to press time, none of the searches during the course of the day had uncover any of the missing eight, six of whom were identified as Deon Moses, Christopher Narine, Ulric Grimes, Ricky Bobb and his brother Keanu Amsterdam and Brazilian national Francisco Alves.
Stabroek News was told that the two unidentified persons may be Brazilian nationals. Two persons rescued after the collision on Tuesday remained hospitalised; one at the Bartica Hospital and another at a private city hospital. The body of Parika resident Jermaine Calistro, which was found about four hours after the collision, was also brought to the city yesterday and it is being stored at the Lyken’s Funeral Home.
Benn told Stabroek News that there was a lot of traffic on the river top as a result of mining activities in the area and he explained that had any of the missing men been alive, they would have been found already. As a result, he said the objective of the operation is now search and recovery.
Sources explained to this newspaper that the bodies should begin to surface within three days and would be found several miles from the collision site, given the current in the Mazaruni River.
Benn disclosed that a site was identified for the establishment of the operations camp that would be activated today. He said senior officers of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the deputy river navigating officer for the area were at the site finalising arrangements for the camp.
He noted that a GDF helicopter was used in the search operation yesterday, while a floating plane had been used on the previous day until it had to be abandoned because of the fading light.
Benn, Public Service Minister Dr. Jennifer Westford, officials from Maritime Administration (MARAD) including Director General Claudette Rogers and Region Seven Chairman Gordon Bradford visited the site following a meeting with regional officials and the police yesterday.
Asked if contact was made with the relatives of those missing, Benn responded in the affirmative. He said that officials met with Ricky Amsterdam, whose two sons are missing. He said too that a brother of one of the persons missing was also among the search party. Up to yesterday afternoon, he added, relatives of the missing were in one or two boats still scouring the river for any signs of the missing persons.
The captains of the two vessels involved in the collision, meanwhile, remained in police custody. Any charges against them would have to await an investigation by maritime authorities. Stabroek News was reliably informed yesterday that some time ago one of the boat captains was charged over a collision which claimed the life of a man.
Anxious
Relatives of the missing yesterday remained anxious to find them.
June Moses stood patiently outside of the Bartica Public Hospital awaiting news of the fate of her husband, Deon Moses. Deon Moses, 33, is a resident of Lot 6 Norton Street, Wortmanville.
His wife, who was accompanied by her sister, said she immediately travelled to Bartica after her husband’s employer alerted her about the accident.
June added that she last spoke to Moses, a father of two, earlier Tuesday and he indicated to her that he was on his way out of the interior.
Ricky Amsterdam, the father of Ricky Bobb and Keanu Amsterdam, said that his sons, both mechanics, are ages 27 and 17, respectively. At the time of the mishap, they were heading out of the interior, he said.
Bobb and Amsterdam both resided at Barr Street, Kitty, while the latter also had an address at Bartica.
A man, who identified himself as the grandfather of Keanu Amsterdam, said that the teen was taken up by another person on the boat to work on some machinery.
This person was later identified to Stabroek News as Juliet (only name given), who is now a patient in a city hospital. The impact aggravated a surgical procedure that she underwent ten days earlier. When contacted, she was in too much pain to speak.
The man’s grandfather said that Keanu showed a great interest in mechanics and as such followed his dream.
At the Lot 11 Salem Housing Scheme, Parika home of Grimes, his wife Penny Grimes said that she last spoke to him on Monday around 12 pm. He was heading to Puruni, where he worked as a miner.
The woman told this newspaper that around 4:30 pm on Tuesday, she received a call from another boatman, identified as “Seeram,” who informed her that there was a boat collision and that her husband was on board one of the boats.
Grimes, 39, is a father seven.
Meanwhile, at Calistro’s home, at Lot 2022 Budhoo Housing Scheme, Parika, his mother, Donna Calistro, wept uncontrollably. She said that she last spoke to her son last Saturday around 3 pm when he would usually call to speak to his family. “Oh lord meh son, look how he dead and gone,” she cried.
His sister Dereese Calistro, remembered him as always being quiet. She said, “He never really spoke much and always kept to himself. He always smiled even when he was sad or stressed.”
A friend, Delonte Roberts, who was also present at the home, said that at 1pm on Tuesday he received a call from his cousin stating that Calistro was involved in the collision. Roberts said that when he contacted the owner of the boat, he was told that they were unaware of the accident and as a result he along with 19 others formed a search party. They eventually found his lifeless remains around 6:30 pm.
This newspaper was told that Calistro, a former miner, recently started working on a fuel ship. At the time of the mishap he was heading home.
‘Jump or perish’
The collision, which occurred just a month after a similar crash in the Pomeroon River that claimed six lives, has left residents of riverain communities uneasy. Several residents of Bartica said yesterday that they were still in shock and called for measures to be put in place to ensure that travelling on the water top is safe.
A survivor from the boat that was leaving Puruni said that about 11:30 am on Tuesday, the vessel she was in came to a turn below Crab Falls when they saw another boat approaching at a fast rate.
“Everything happen so quickly, is like you had no time to scream; was just jump or perish,” she said, while adding that each boat captain managed to jump from their vessel seconds before the head-on collision. Thereafter, she recounted, passengers were pitched from the boats, which sank within 20 minutes.
She said she swam to a nearby tree and held on to it. She was rescued about 10 minutes later by the occupants of a passing boat.
The woman opined that the collision could have been prevented if the boats had better safety equipment and if the captains had been more vigilant. She added that while there were life jackets on board the boat she was on, there were only eight available while there were thirteen persons onboard. She was wearing a life jacket but said it did not do much for her. She said that “it couldn’t really support” her weight.
Questions have been raised as to why the captains of the vessels did not proceed with caution since the channel in the Crab Falls area is very narrow and littered with rocks. Another survivor also recounted that all the persons that were in his boat were fitted with life jackets but he said that in spite of this they were “still going down.” He questioned if checks were done by authorities to ensure that boats are equipped with good quality life jackets.
A survivor, Rudolph Sam, 38, had told Stabroek News on Tuesday that he was at the time heading up to Puruni to repair an excavator.
Sam, a mechanic, said that there were eight other passengers—seven Brazilians and one Guyanese—on the boat heading into Puruni, while the boat which was exiting Puruni contained 13 persons.
According to him, the accident occurred at a blind spot near an island which is in the middle of the channel. He said that as his boat was going around the island, in the vicinity of Crab Falls, the collision occurred.
“We were coming around the island and I coulda see the other boat coming but I ain’t know if we captain see the other boat comin’ and somebody mussee blink… because next thing I know the other boat start to zigzag and they already ain’t had too much space to manoeuvre. Everywhere we boat try to go, the other one did going. So I grab a fuel drum, ’cause I know they woulda crash, and I jump overboard,” he said.
Based on his account, the boat he was on was fitted with two 200 horsepower engines, which the boat’s captain revved sharply after the impact. This caused them to hit the bank of the nearby island, and sent the boat’s passengers flying over the sides of the vessel onto the riverbank. He explained that the captain of the other boat did not try to accelerate after impact.
Farmers they had earlier passed soon came and provided assistance. All nine passengers from Sam’s boat were said to be have been rescued, while nine passengers from the other vessel could not be found. Calistro’s body was recovered hours later.
