What Kills Us This Week!

It was all very very sad about the two ferrys colliding out there near Lamma Island and I have nothing but sympathy for the families of those who died.

I have heard very few insider stories and can probably add nothing to this story, so all I can really do is summarise and speculate although, so far, nothing is really known yet about why it happened, although I do know it was all about the fireworks, with both vessels traveling at full speed, both running a little late so fully aware of the ticking clock, in order to watch the Mainland's China National Day celebratory fireworks display over Hong Kong Harbour.

One ship, Lamma IV, owned by the Lamma Electricity Works, was taking employees and their families to find a great spot on the Harbour to view the fireworks, while the other, Sea Smooth, the regular Lamma Island passenger ferry, was in a big hurry to drop off one load of passengers in order to pick up Lamma Islanders who were going into Central to also watch the display.

Tick tick tick tick!

I also know that Sea Smooth rammed Lamma IV, and from the damage it appears to me that neither ship gave way and the subsequent last minute swerve by Sea Smooth to avoid collision ripped the side-back off Lamma IV, which must have flooded the back compartments because it immediately went down tail-first.  Very Titanic, yes?

But then it appeared that Sea Smooth immediately ran away at full speed, leaving the other ship's passengers to drown. An interview with a Sea Smooth passenger immediately afterwards set Hong Kong off, ranting and storming, because her line "We could see the other boat immediately sinking and could hear the people trapped inside screaming" was the only one that stood for an entire day ...

... but an interview with the hospitalised Sea Smooth captain more than 24 hours later said that his ship was listing and taking on water and so he felt he had to get his passengers to safety; a report which took away all the heat and hate from the public but which didn't stop him being arrested.

Let me see if I can find anything which shows the damage:



If you look at 0.26 to 0.33, you can see the extent of the damage to Sea Smooth. I really do think this footage is going to become very important because I think it's going to be used to prove whether or not water was coming in and the passengers' lives were at risk, and you can see on that footage that definitely water was coming in.

Other passengers on Sea Smooth interviewed later, along with the captain, confirm that the ferry was listing and so they were all standing in large huddles on the other side to balance the boat and to keep the damaged side out of the water.

And the fireworks display the whole thing was about? First reports said they were immediately cancelled so the search and rescue could get underway, but we all know that it didn't go down that way at all.
 
However, let me throw something into this mix that could be important. Our darling old friend Andrew was in town and so, because he's a strict vegetarian, on the very day of the crash we decided to go to Lamma Island to have lunch at the wonderful Bookworm Vegetarian Cafe ... but when we got down to the ferry pier the line to Lamma was so stupidly, stupidly long we decided to go have lunch at Discovery Bay instead.

Hey, look what I just found on youtube:



OK, that is NOT normal.  NEVER in the history of Lamma Island ferry service has there been that many people waiting to catch the ferry.  And I can absolutely verify that THAT is what we saw and that is why we didn't go to Lamma that day. Oh dear, from what she says on the footage that poor American lady lives on Lamma Island so she HAD to take that ferry but for those of us who didn't need to, it was an immediate detour to Pier 3, the next one along, instead.

Why that line is so long does make sense since I did hear that Mainland Chinese, visiting from over the border for this National Day Golden Week, were determined to NOT be locusts - as HK calls them - and were determined to neither shop nor crowd out the regular tourist sites and instead visit HK's nature spots, of which Lamma Island is one. So that has to be the reason, right?

So I wonder if that stupidly long line should be factored into the cause of the ferry accident?  It's definitely an aberration and ... well, the ferry would have been crowded all day and the captain was probably frazzled and that could well explain why it was running late.  Yes?

So that would have to be my choice of 'what kills us' for this week:

THREATDOWN  

LOCUSTS!