With Chinese New Year and the Tet festival in Vietnam fast approaching, it is worth looking at whether the risk of drowning increases during religious festivals in Asia. In the lead up to, during, and after religious festivals there is often an increased burden placed on already poorly maintained or overworked water transportation infrastructure. This is often due to an increase in the number of people moving around, be it to shop, to return home or to be with family or to attend religious sites for prayer.

In recent years in several countries across Asia, there have been large-scale drowning incidents resulting in deaths on water transportation during religious holidays.

In southern India, 12 people drowned and 20 others remain missing after a crowded boat carrying Hindu pilgrims capsized in a river on 30 Jan, 2010. The pilgrims were crossing the Godavari River to reach a village temple, when the boat overturned mid river. The boat had a capacity for 50, yet had 70 people on board. 

In Vietnam on Jan 26, 2009, an overcrowded boat heading to a market on the opposite side of a river to shop on the day before Tet, sank. The accident occurred in the Gianh River, in Thanh Binh province in central Vietnam (approximately 500km south of Hanoi). The wooden boat, with a capacity for 12 people, was overloaded with 78 passengers. 42 people drowned when the boat, only 20 metres from shore, began to take on water and people panicked, causing the boat to tip over and sink.

In this case, the majority of the victims were women (27 including three pregnant women) and children (7), which may also be the case for most incidents such as this. 36 people survived, with several swimming to shore and the majority being plucked from the river by rescuers. This incident is the one of the worst ferry accidents in Vietnam.

Many Vietnamese are forced to rely on small boats to cross the hundreds of rivers and streams all over Vietnam. Most ferries in Vietnam are unlicensed and of unknown quality and despite state regulations requiring ferries to carry one life jacket for each person on board, this is often not the case.

Bangladesh, another nation that relies heavily upon water transport, has also experienced a number of ferry capsizings resulting in mass casualties. The most recent, on November 27 2009, saw an overcrowded ferry capsized in Southern Bangladesh. The ferry, with a capacity of 1000, was packed with approximately 1500 people who were travelling from the capital Dhaka, to their homes in Bola for the Muslim Festival of Eid al-Adha.

Seventy five people drowned, including 31 children, when the boat toppled after passengers weighed down one side of the boat whilst waiting to disembark.

A search of the literature finds that there is little or no research documented on the topic of drowning risk and religious holidays; this is a call to action for those with an interest in the area of research, water safety and water transportation to examine the issue of drowning risk and religious festivals in Asia and propose realistic and effective solutions.

Water safety, including the use of life jackets, avoiding overcrowding on boats, ensuring safety standards and improving the number of people with basic survival swimming skills and knowledge, may all help to reduce the prevalence of these incidents and the horrific death tolls that are often associated. But we need to know more.

Indonesia and the Philippines, two island nations where large sea-going ferries are prevalent, also suffer from such disasters and further research into improving the safety of water transportation in these countries would also be extremely valuable.

Amy Peden, Royal Life Saving Society - Australia

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