Every day in central and south Viet Nam, the lives of tens of thousands of passengers, many of them schoolchildren, are placed at risk because of a lack of life jackets.

Teachers and students of Chieng On Secondary School in Son La Province go to school by boat. Their lives are at risk because of a shortage of life jackets.

Some people are now calling for a law to force passengers to wear lifejackets on board ferries. At present, there is no compulsion, apart from common sense, to make passengers contribute to their own safety.

Four years ago, a national campaign was launched to get all passengers to wear lifejackets. Thirty thousand jackets were even provided free-of-charge to ferry owners and students.

Earlier this year, 42 people died in a ferry accident on the Gianh River in Quang Binh Province because there were not enough lifejackets for everyone.

Few companies take any notice of the safety provisions because there are no penalties attached for non-observance.

Tran Thi Hoa, the owner of a ferry at Da Giang Ferry Station in Nui Thanh District, Quang Nam Province, is typical.

She said the commune gave her 10 lifejackets every year, but she only put three on her boats.

“The weather is fine, so I don’t use them all,” Hoa said. “Moreover, it would take a lot of space on the boats.”

Seventh grader Truong Thi Hien Dieu from Quang Trung School in Nui Thanh said there were never any lifejackets on board the ferry she took to school.

The same situation exists in Quang Binh Province. Vice chairman of Thuan Hoa Commune People’s Committee in Tuyen Hoa District, Nguyen Thanh Binh, agreed that many ferries owners on the Gianh River failed to carry lifejackets.

“Although I know that this violates traffic-safety regulations, there is no other way for students to get to school,” he said.

According to Nguyen Van Thong, head of Tram Me Village in Bo Trach District, most ferries owners in his village did not even have a licence to operate a ferry - and they did not equip their vessels with life-jackets or first-aid kits.

“But we have to let them run because residents need to go to work or to shop and students need to get to school,” Thong said.

In Ca Mau Province in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta the situation is similar. Some schoolchildren have been provided with schoolbags that double as lifesavers to save them if they get into difficulties in the watery environment.

However, many ferry owners claim they are too poor to equip their vessels with lifejackets.

Bui Van Sau, a ferry owner in Hoa Tan Commune, Ca Mau City, admitted he could not afford life-jackets for all passengers.

However, the situation is much better in HCM City, where more than 90 per cent of ferry operators are considered safe and well-equipped, according to Phan Hoang Tri, vice director of the Waterway Management Board. But the wearing of life-jackets while on board is another issue.

Nguyen Toan Man, head of Waterway Management Team No 1 in the city, said safety awareness by passengers was still low.

“Although life-jackets are available, they don’t wear them because they say they are too dirty or that they don’t have far to go,” he said.

Head of the Waterway Management Team No 5, Trinh Quoc Duy, said that it was difficult to get people to wear life-jackets on board.

According to La Vinh Tuyen, head of the Planning and Investment Unit of the Waterway Management Board of HCM City, a document has been sent to the Ministry of Transport calling for a regulation to oblige passengers to wear life-jackets. However, no response has been received.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News