3-member body formed to probe fire incident in St Martin-bound cruise ship

The Mercantile Marine Office of the Department of Shipping has formed a three-member committee to investigate the fire incident in Saint Martin's island-bound luxury cruise ship MV Bay-1 on Friday night.

Giashuddin Ahmed, principal officer of the Mercantile Marine Office, told UNB on Saturday.

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Nautical Surveyor Captain Sheikh Md Jalal Uddin Gazi will head the committee, the principal officer said, adding that the committee has been asked to submit a report within the next three days.

The other two members of the committee are Rafiqul Alam, engineer and ship surveyor, and Mohammad Hossain, field unit coordinator of the Department of Shipping.

Captain Sheikh Md Jalal said the investigation report will be submitted after completing the survey and recommendations will be made after identifying the reason behind the incident. 

Earlier on Friday, the cruise ship was forced to anchor mid-sea as the crews noticed thick smoke in the engine room.

The incident happened around two hours after the ship left Patenga terminal in Chattogram for Saint Martin's island carrying around 800 passengers.

The crew of the ship managed to shut the engine and control the fire within half an hour and fortunately none of the passengers were harmed.

Later , a tugboat named Kandari-10 managed to drag the ship with passengers to shore from 17 nautical miles away from Patenga.