Bahrain incident 'tragic'

2006-03-31 17:03

Johannesburg - Five South Africans were among the 57 people who died when an overcrowded boat on a dinner cruise sank off the coast of Bahrain, a company employing the victims said on Friday.

Four were employees of the Johannesburg-based Murray and Roberts engineering firm and the fifth victim was a spouse, chief executive Brian Bruce said.

"There were four South African employees and a fifth, the spouse of one of our employees, who died in the accident," Bruce told AFP.

Three Britons, two Indians and one Pakistani - all employed by Murray and Roberts - were also among the dead.

"It's a tragic incident. We are all traumatised," said Bruce. He said the company has called for an independent investigation into the disaster.

The accident happened late on Thursday when an overcrowded wooden leisure boat sank off the Bahraini coast, the Middle Eastern archipelago of 35 islands ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty.

Murray and Roberts and its partner Bahraini firm Nass hired the boat to celebrate completing the concrete outside structure for a new $150m World Trade Centre which is being built there.

There were around 120 people on board, Bruce said, 25 of them employed directly by his company while others belonged to Nass, a design team and various sub-contractors.

"They were celebrating a major milestone. My feeling is that they would not have done something like this if they felt it was in any way dangerous," he said.

Bruce said Murray and Roberts however have launched their own independent investigation into the accident.

"We are not trying to allocate blame, but we are trying to understand the thought process behind the decision (to celebrate this way) and to learn from it so we don't make the same mistake again," he said.

The company confirmed that 15 other employees were safe after the accident.

- AFP