After a boat carrying religious pilgrims overturned in Bangladesh on Monday, seven more remains were found by rescuers, bringing the death toll to 32, with much more still unaccounted for, according to the police.
On Sunday, a small boat in a river carrying mostly women and children capsized as onlookers screamed in terror from the shore. The famous temple was where the boat was going.
The most recent in a string of disasters of a similar type blamed on poor maintenance and overcrowding in the low-lying delta nation occurred in a remote part of the north.
The seven remains were discovered in the Karotoa river, downstream from where the boat sank close to the town of Boda, according to district police commander Sirajul Huda. More than the up to 50 pilgrims that authorities claimed were on board—around 90 people—were on board.
Huda stated, “Sixty persons are still missing.”
It was loaded three times as much as it could bear. Since it had been raining heavily earlier, when the ferry service started, pilgrims crowded the boat to get to the temple as soon as possible, according to Huda.
“In an effort to reduce the weight-load, the boatman requested that some passengers leave. But nobody paid attention,” he continued. Every year, thousands of Hindus travel to Bangladesh, a country with a majority of Muslims, to visit the Bodeshwari Temple.
The largest Hindu holiday in Bangladesh as well as eastern India, Durga Puja, began on Sunday, drawing a sizable audience to the shrine. In southern Bangladesh, a crowded three-story ferry caught fire in December of last year, killing about 40 people.
