THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Men in our families go out to sea risking their lives to put food on the table. They return to us lifeless,” laments 42-year-old Sofira, whose two children perished in a tragic boat accident at the infamous Muthalapozhi Harbour.
It’s been two years since Sofira lost 18-year-old Mohammad Musthafa and 20-year-old Mohammad Usman, in one of the most tragic boat accidents ever witnessed at the harbour claiming five out of 24 fisher people who were on the boat. She lost her two children and brother-in-law in the accident in August 2022. The grief is still afresh in this home, casting a shadow over the family.
Sofira’s children tagged along with their father, 50-year-old Mohammad Haneefa Kahar for deep-sea fishing. However, even in their wildest dreams, the parents never imagined that their children would never return from the sea. With teary eyes, Sofira recalls memories of her youngest.
“It was vacation time and all he wanted was to help his father repay his debts. He paid with his life.” Haneefa is yet to recover from the tragic loss of his sons and brother.
“The sea was calm that day,” he recalls. “There was no weather warning against fishing. It all happened quickly — the sea turned rough and violent waves crashed against our boat, tossing us around,” he says.
“We lost control. My sons clung desperately to the wreckage but were swept away by another merciless wave. I watched helplessly as the sea swallowed them. I couldn’t save my sons.” The coastal police arrived two hours later, but by then, it was already too late, the father says.
‘Collateral damage’
The realisation of Vizhinjam Port, the first container transshipment port in India, has come at a devastating cost to the hundreds of fishermen who depend on Muthalapozhi Harbour. Their livelihoods and the harbour itself have been sacrificed as collateral damage in the pursuit of the mega port project by the changing governments and operators — Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd (VISL) and Adani Vizhinjam Port Pvt Ltd (AVPL).
The unscientific construction of a breakwater and barge at Muthalapozhi, designed to facilitate the transportation of boulders and rock for the breakwater at Vizhinjam Port is cited as the primary cause for the growing accidents. Fishing boats capsising, fishermen losing their lives, bodies going missing, and damage to fishing equipment and boats have become a repeated occurrence at the harbour mouth.
It’s been two years since Sauda Beevi’s husband, 52-year-old Samad, went missing here. “The government is yet to declare him dead. I want to believe that he is safe somewhere and will return to me someday. If he were dead, the government would have given me the compensation,” says Sauda, who survives on the minimum wages from Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
According to records, more than 70 people have lost their lives at the harbour mouth in the past five years. In recent years, the fatalities and accidents have increased prompting the Minority Commission to registre a case suo motu on the repeated accidents. And the commission has also flagged grave discrepancies in the number of deaths reported by various government agencies.
“I lost everything that day. My beloved sons and the fishing boat I owned. The harbour became a death trap for us because of the disastrous construction of the breakwater. All these fatalities and losses we are suffering are happening because of the apathy of the government,” says Haneefa.
Haneefa incurred `50 lakh worth of losses and is now neck deep in debt. “Our family didn’t even get a penny from the distress relief fund. They didn’t prevent us from going fishing that day despite the rough weather,” he adds.
28-year-old Vini V and 25-year-old Divya Mol are still grieving the death of their father, 53-year-old Victor Thomas, who lost his life at Muthalapozhi three months back. “Our mother left us 10 years back and it was our father who took care of us. We have also lost our house to sea erosion. And we still can’t believe our father is never coming back. The accident happened at around 1.30am. And we came to know that the ambulance arrived very late, else our father could have been saved,” says Divya.
Apart from the negligible compensation for the lost lives, the government is not giving any financial support as compensation for the damage and destruction happening to the fishing vessels, says the community.
The countless accidents, rescues and deaths continued this year too at the harbour mouth. However, apart from the compensation for the lost lives, the government has yet to take any solid measures to make the harbour safe for fishing activities. Last month, around 21 people were rescued after a boat capsised, where two fishermen were injured seriously.
Lack of dredging
The harbour is located where the Vamanapuram river meets the Arabian Sea. It has two parallel breakwaters extending from the shore deep into the sea. Now, the channel has turned dangerous owing to the unscientific construction activities and accumulation of large quantities of sand.
In 2018, the harbour engineering department (HeD) signed an agreement with AVPPL to remove the accumulated sand and undertake dredging of the Muthalapozhi channel to maintain a depth of five metres to prevent fishing boat accidents. Though the agreement expired in April 2021, the government extended the MoU for three more years, which also ended in April 2024. This was further extended to June 11, 2024. However, the Adani Port repeatedly failed to comply with the agreement leading to severe accidents.
In response to the accidents, the state government had roped in the Pune-based Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS) to conduct a detailed study of the situation at Muthalapozhi Harbour to come up with solutions.
According to ocean scientist and social activist A J Vijayan, CWPRS had already carried out a similar study in 2011 and proposed two solutions — sand bypassing and the extension of breakwater. However, the government never implemented them.
“The government neglected all solutions put forward by experts. The removal of accretion happening at the south side would have helped avoid these dredging activities for maintaining a five-metre depth. It would have helped avert the erosion happening on the north side too. But the government was interested in undertaking constructions without any scientific study, making the harbour mouth dangerous,” Vijayan explains.
He alleges that the government sacrificed the harbour, established exclusively for fishing activities, using 60 per cent funds from the Union government, to facilitate the construction of Vizhinjam Port.
“The government is hiding the study reports from the
public domain. They should immediately make the report from CWPRS public and hold discussions. They are denying access to the report even to Right To Information (RTI) requests,” he adds.
Plan in the anvil
Based on the report by the CWPRS, the Harbour Engineering Department has devised a Rs 163-crore plan to improve safety at Muthalapozhi Harbour. The project is expected to be completed in 18 months. Chief engineer Mohammad Ansari M A says the soft copy of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) has already been submitted to the Union government. “The government has put forward some corrections and the final DPR will be submitted by next week,” he says.