A Bangladeshi cargo vessel carrying fly ash sank on Thursday in the Hooghly river after hitting a dispatch vessel of the Kolkata Port.
All 13 crew members of the Bangladeshi ship Mamatamoyee Maa — which was returning home with the load from a CESC thermal power plant — were rescued, a Kolkata Port Trust official said.
The incident took place around noon at Akra, near Budge Budge area in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district.
Following the damage, the Bangladeshi ship’s sailors brought it close to the jetty at Maheshtala in Budge Budge and even tried to tie it to a tree to prevent it from going down.
However, the tree got uprooted due to high tide and the ship started sinking.
An official said there was a technical failure on Mamatamoyee Maa and a crack in the hull following the collision. The KoPT ship Ravindra also suffered partial damage.
A KoPT official said despite repeated warnings the Bangladeshi vessel had intruded into the route designated for KoPT ships.
The KoPT chairman has ordered an inquiry into the incident.