The Value of All People
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| M/V Doola 3 after catastrophic explosion rips tanker in two. |
Monday, December 21, 1987, I was shaving with NPR's morning addition playing in the background. A news item caught my attention. The ferry Dona Paz had collided with the motor tanker Vector in the Sibuyan Sea among the islands of the Philippines. The death toll was set at 1495 passengers and crewmembers. As days passed, there was total silence about what had happened, how many survived, and what was the cause of the greatest peacetime maritime disaster since the Titanic.
I didn't see the name Dona Paz until 1999, when I visited the Global Mariner, which was on a world-tour to focus the world's attention on the consequences of substandard shipping. One exhibit listed major maritime disasters. There she was on the top of the list, but now the death toll had dramatically increased. In the end, investigators concluded that the ship's passenger manifest failed to record most of the Dona Paz' passengers. In reality, 4375 people had died.
In January of this year, we were over whelmed with the drama playing out along the Italian coast. The Costa Concordia, with forty-two hundred passengers and crewmembers, was foundering. For weeks, news stories relayed every detail about the ship, the passengers, the crew, the captain, and those whose bodies were recovered. However, only 33 passengers appear to have died.
In comparing these two stories, I am deeply troubled how the lives of 4375 Filipinos only garnered two minutes on NPR, while the loss of the Costa Concordia and 33 passengers and crewmembers continue to be a hot item forty-five days later.
This could have been a press anomaly, or an example of the information revolution that has taken place over the past twenty-five years. We now have the internet, twenty-four-hour news, Facebook, and much more. Maybe this doesn't really have anything to do with who died, but the power of the modern media.
Sadly, that's not the case. On February 2, 2012, the ferry Rabual Queen sank off Papua New Guinea. Like twenty-five years before, I heard a short story on NPR, then nothing. When I google "Rabaul Queen," the stories dry up after only three days. Yet, the stories of the Italian passenger ship continue to flow.
Since the Costa Concordia foundered, 127 passengers and seafarers have lost their lives:
* February 2, 2012 - Passenger M/V Rabaul Queen sinks carrying 350 people while on a voyage from Kimbe to Lae, PNG. Two hundred and forty-six people were reported rescued, four bodies recovered, 100 are presumed to be dead.
* January 31, 2012 - M/V Vera sinks off Turkey. Three crewmembers rescued, and nine are missing.
* January 15, 2012: 4,100-dwt M/V Edirne sank 5-km from the port of Durres, Albania. The vessel had taken on fuel there. One body was found. Two others, including the captain, are missing. Twelve men were rescued.
* January 15, 2012 - 6,536-dwt Korean M/V Doola No 3 exploded in waters 6-km northwest of Jawol Island, off Incheon. The vessel had been on its way back to the port of Daesan after unloading a cargo of gasoline at Incheon. Eleven seafarers are missing and feared dead.
Orthodox, Catholics and some Christian denominations are in the midst of the season of Lent. It is a penitential time. By prayer and ascetical practices, the penitent should shed himself or herself of the false gods that dominate his or her life. In the place of these false gods, he or she can see and live what is true. How wonderful it would be that to celebrate the great feast of Easter by seeing every human life has value whether the person is on a luxury cruise liner, or a Filipino ferry.
My prayers are that you and your family will be greatly blessed in this holy time.
The Nautical Institute learned with great sadness of the loss of life associated with the sinking of the Costa Concordia and expresses condolences to the bereaved families and sympathies to the injured and traumatised survivors. We congratulate the rescue agencies who continue to search for casualties in very difficult circumstances.