At a time when the nation was in a high spirit enjoying the festivities of Pahela Baishakh, the news of the tragic death of two university students and missing of four others off the coast of the St. Martin's Island came as a great shock and spoiler. Of the five rescued by the locals, the surviving three too were in a critical condition. They were among a group of 34 students from the Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology. This batch of 34 students of the final year Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) wanted to celebrate the auspicious occasion in a special way away from home and their campus on the picturesque holiday resort at the furthest tip of the country. On completion of their last examination of the final year they surely deserved an outing. But the fact remains that it is an outsize tragedy for the families who will have no solace for the sudden loss of their near ones who were about to become graduate engineers. Little did the group know that on the other side of their recreation and enjoyment death did approach silently to envelop their existence with a sense of unbearable void.
Of the missing four, bodies of two were found and the rest two may have embraced the same fate. Now it is not easy to accept the loss of lives of six such brilliant students. Clearly, it was a mistake to go for swimming during low tide. But it is not for the first time that vacationers, usually school, college or university students from different areas where there is no sea, have died in similar conditions. Most such incidents have taken place at the Cox's Bazar sea beach and St. Martins. True, attempts to warn bathers at the beach of Cox's Bazar are now more pronounced than they were before but it is still too little and often proves too late. At St. Martin's such arrangements are conspicuous by their absence. Even the beach on the north-eastern side of the island had no notice board but it is that dangerous part where eight tourists including a student of Jahangirnagar University also had died earlier. This indicates the need for a warning notice there was all the more compelling. Defiance of the red flags marking the danger zones at Cox's Bazar too leads to such tragedies but here no such warning notice was posted. Clearly, such deaths were avoidable.
That tourists or vacationers will be mostly carefree has to be taken for guaranteed. At tourist spots of such irresistible attractions, people throw caution into the wind. It is the duty of the authorities to look after them. If tourism is not fraught with such risks, it may be anything but not such a global business. Now to make business successful, there is a need for putting in place all possible safety measures. Why not post a professional contingent of lifeguards during the time when people plunge in seawater? Constant watch through binocular from the watch tower over each and every bather can be of help. During the low tide, the lifeguards will not allow anyone to dip in seawater let alone go for a swim. After all, tourism is a money spinner and the sea beaches at both Cox's Bazaar and St. Martin's can draw more tourists if they are managed well. Now corals in the sea off the coast of St. Martin's are dying in the absence of proper surveillance and maintenance. All this should change for the better if tourism has to flourish and tragic deaths in the sea there are to be avoided.
Death at St. Martin\\\'s
FE Team | Published: April 17, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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