Monday, September 14, 2009
Don’t name a ship “Superferry”
by Larry Geller
I left a Google Alert active for the word “Superferry.” There are a few other services around the globe that use the term, but mostly the hits are on the Philippine ferry service – the one which suffered a disaster last week when Superferry 9 sank, killing 10 people.
Today another Philippine Superferry burnt up when a fluorescent light in the kitchen sparked a fire.
In 2004, Superferry 14 entered history books as the 4th worst terrorist bombing since September 11, 2001. The death toll was about 116.
Update: My quick post yesterday did not do the fire situation justice. From an article today:
This is not the first time that a fire broke out in a SuperFerry vessel. On October 12, 2000, SuperFerry6 caught fire on its starboard panel and sunk off Batangas. More than 1,000 passengers were rescued.
On March 9, 2006, SuperFerry12 caught fire off the coast of Bantayan Island, and 664 passengers were injured. [businessmirror.com, Fire hits ‘SuperFerry 1’, 9/15/2009]
The record is actually so poor that the Philippine government is investigating whether the ferry operator, Aboitiz Transport System Corp., should be allowed to continue to operate.
Post a Comment
Requiring those Captcha codes at least temporarily, in the hopes that it quells the flood of comment spam I've been receiving.