Body of missing crew member recovered from blast-hit oil tanker in Jhalakathi

Rescuers have recovered a body from the oil tanker ravaged by an onboard explosion in Jhalakathi
The body was found in the engine room of the tanker, styled Shagor Nandini-2, on Sunday afternoon, according to Md Shafiqul Islam, station officer of Jhalakathi Fire Service and Civil Defence, reports bdnews24.com.
However, the authorities have yet to identify the body.
A search and rescue operation was ongoing around the explosion site on the Sugondha River to locate four missing crew members, who were initially believed to have drowned after being ejected from the tanker following the explosion.
Five others were rescued from the site in the wake of the incident on Saturday, according to Jhalakathi police and district administration. They were receiving treatment for critical burn wounds at Barishal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital.
Four of the wounded have been named as Shakil, 35, Faridul Alam, 53, Iqbal Hone, 27, and Mainul Islam Hridoy, 29.
The authorities could neither confirm the identities of the missing crew members nor determine the reason for the explosion. The tanker had suffered a hull breach six months ago, causing a massive oil spill in Bhola.
However, the discovery of the body appears to have caused further confusion regarding the number of missing crew members. Initially, it was believed that four crew members, who were at the back of the tanker when the explosion occurred, might have been thrown off the tanker by the powerful shockwave.
A police statement on Saturday fuelled the confusion about the missing crew members, as Din-e-Alam, an additional superintendent of Barishal River Police, said the missing members were found and rescued.
On Sunday, Bangladesh Coast Guard, which is also taking part in the rescue mission, confirmed the missing status of the crew members.
However, there has been no official confirmation on whether the body found in the engine room belonged to one of the missing crew members or if it was someone else who remained unaccounted for until now.
Earlier on Sunday, Lt Col Shafayet Hossain, an official of the Coast Guard's South Zone, speculated that the crew members who are currently missing could have been carried away from the site of the explosion by the force of the high tide and drifted downstream or towards nearby rivers.
"We have deployed divers at certain points of the Sugondha, Bishkhali and Kirtankhola rivers from 8 am [Sunday] to find any missing crew member of the tanker," he said.
Meanwhile, friends and family members of three out of the four missing crew members were waiting anxiously on the banks of the river for any news about their loved ones.
The missing men are Ruhul Amin Khan from Barishal, the master of the tanker, Masuduzzaman Belal from Chandpur, the supervisor of the tanker's crew, and Akram Hossain from Pirojpur, a steersman's assistant.
Some family members alleged that Coast Guard personnel were busy dealing with the oil spill instead of prioritising the search for the missing crew members.
Officials at the Padma Oil Company Limited, which owns the cargo and the tanker, confirmed that 400,000 litres of fuel oil had been recovered from the damaged tanker.
Shagor Nandini-2 brought 900,000 litres of fuel oil to the Padma Oil Depot on Thursday.
Asif Malik, a deputy general manager of the company, suspects that the blast at Rajapur village near the district town may have occurred because the crew members forgot to release the gas accumulated in the chamber next to the engine room while unloading the cargo.
Coincidentally, this was the second time a blast hit an oil tanker at the same location, as six people died after an explosion aboard the Shagor Nandini-3, another tanker owned by the same company, in November 2021.