What Dhaka urgently needs is not sympathy after deaths, but prevention before them. This requires three immediate actions: clearly assigning legal responsibility for canals and rivers, enforcing waste and transport safety laws without bureaucratic evasion, and institutionalising accountability through compensation, prosecution, and continuous monitoring. Without these steps, deaths in water, whether of children in canals or passengers on rivers, will continue to be treated as unfortunate accidents rather than preventable failures of governance.
Dhaka was once defined by water. With more than fifty canals and numerous lakes, the city had a natural drainage and safety system that supported urban life. Over the past three decades, however, nearly all of these water bodies have disappeared or been rendered lethal. Land grabbing, unregulated urban expansion, and the routine dumping of solid waste have transformed canals into open pits of danger rather than channels of flow.
The death of six-year-old Jisan on March 8, 2018, in a canal near Nobodoy Housing in Adabor is emblematic of this transformation. While attempting to retrieve a cricket ball from garbage-filled water, he drowned, and firefighters took five hours to recover his body. This was not an unforeseeable tragedy. It occurred in a canal that had long been neglected, left uncovered, unprotected, and clogged with waste.
Jisan’s death is part of a recurring and deeply troubling pattern. In recent years, children such as three-year-old Hridoy in Mugda, four-year-old Ismail Hossain Neerob in Kadamtali, and three-year-old Jihad in Shahjahanpur have died in similar circumstances. These cases expose not isolated mishaps, but structural negligence. Urban planner Iqbal Habib has repeatedly pointed out that city corporations are legally mandated to restore and conserve canals to ensure proper water flow. Yet canals remain dumping grounds, lacking barriers, warning signs, or routine maintenance, conditions that make them inherently life-threatening.
Instead of addressing this failure, government agencies routinely shift responsibility. Dhaka WASA claims canal maintenance lies with the District Commissioner, while city corporations deny ownership or obligation. This administrative ambiguity effectively paralyses accountability. As a result, bereaved families are left navigating a maze of institutions that acknowledge the tragedy but deny responsibility.
Legal experts argue that this paralysis is neither accidental nor unavoidable. Barrister Md Abdul Halim notes that families can pursue constitutional tort claims under Article 102 of the Constitution for deaths caused by state negligence. Yet even when such cases are filed, progress is painfully slow. Overlapping jurisdictions, procedural delays, and institutional reluctance to accept fault dilute justice and weaken deterrence. When negligence carries no consequence, it inevitably repeats itself.
While citizens also have a duty not to pollute or misuse water bodies, the greater burden rests with the state. When authorities allow canals to become informal dumping sites and fail to secure them physically, individual irresponsibility is amplified into collective risk. Public safety cannot depend on personal caution alone when structural hazards are left unaddressed.
The same pattern of negligence extends beyond urban canals to Bangladesh’s rivers, where drowning risks are structurally embedded in the transport system itself. A qualitative study on water transport related drownings in the riverine Barishal division highlights how unsafe practices operate before, during, and after accidents. The research identifies chronic vessel overcrowding, particularly during holidays, poorly maintained or absent safety equipment, lack of swimming ability among passengers, and economic pressure that forces people to travel even in unsafe weather. Critically, it also points to the absence of organised rescue systems, meaning survival often depends on chance rather than preparedness.
These findings mirror real incidents. On December 25, two passenger launches collided in dense fog on the Meghna River between Haimchar and Harina in Chandpur, killing four people. Despite warnings from the Meteorological Department and safety guidelines issued by BIWTA and river police, slow navigation, proper lighting, maintaining distance, and avoiding overtaking are routinely ignored. The problem, as the Barishal study suggests, is not lack of knowledge but weak enforcement combined with economic compulsion and institutional neglect.
Dhaka has witnessed even deadlier river disasters. In 2020, the Morning Bird ferry sank in the Buriganga River after a collision near Sadarghat, killing at least thirty people. Survivors alleged overcrowding, contradicting official records. Divers recovered bodies trapped inside cabins, including those of children. Once again, carelessness was cited, but systemic failures, overloading, poor vessel maintenance, weak inspections, lack of functional safety gear, and ineffective rescue capacity, were left largely unaddressed.
Bangladesh’s extensive river network, with over 230 rivers, makes water transport indispensable. Yet ferry accidents continue because safety standards exist more on paper than in practice. The Barishal study underscores that without affordable safety equipment, trained crews, reliable rescue systems, and coordinated oversight, passengers are structurally exposed to drowning risks, regardless of regulations. This makes water transport deaths not random events, but predictable outcomes of policy neglect.
International experience shows that this trajectory is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Many countries enforce strict inspection regimes, mandate crew training, and monitor river traffic digitally. Global agencies including the World Health Organization, UNESCO, and the International Maritime Organisation consistently stress that drowning, especially among children, is a preventable public health issue, not a natural disaster.
The lessons for Bangladesh are clear and unavoidable. Jurisdiction over canals must be unambiguous, with city corporations, WASA, and district administrations held legally accountable for maintenance and safety. Waste management systems must be strengthened through strict enforcement, monitored disposal, and penalties for dumping into waterways. Ferry operations must be regulated through regular inspections, strict passenger limits, affordable and mandatory life-saving equipment, crew training, and digital tracking. Rescue preparedness must be institutionalised, not improvised, through trained responders, equipment, and coordinated emergency systems. Legal mechanisms must ensure timely compensation and institutional accountability when negligence causes death, so that loss of life carries real consequences for decision-makers.
Dhaka’s canals and rivers should sustain life, not claim it. When children drown in neglected canals and passengers die in overcrowded, poorly regulated vessels, the issue is not fate, it is failure. Only by enforcing responsibility, prioritising prevention, and acting decisively on what is already known can Bangladesh stop turning its waterways into sites of recurring tragedy.
The writer is a writer, researcher, and environmentalist. Email: [email protected]
