ONE man is feared drowned and six others were rescued after a ship bound for Trinidad developed difficulties just off Port Georgetown and overturned in the Demerara River channel yesterday. The accident occurred around 14:30hrs, opposite Muneshwar’s Wharf.
Missing is 63-year-old Gerald Da Silva who was employed as the ship’s cook.
Survivors recalled that as disaster struck and the terrified crew began running helter skelter to save their lives, Da Silva ran back into the ship to retrieve a bag and that was the last they saw of him.
Survivors reported that the vessel, which had left Port Georgetown a short while before it turned turtle, developed problems, and was forced to turn back.  According to Minister of  Public Works and Communications, Robeson Benn who was among the first to travel out to the sunken vessel, it would appear that the cargo on board, shifted and the vessel overturned. However, the theory that the ship may have sprung a leak has not been ruled out.
The vessel, sailing under the name ‘Alleisa’, is said to be owned by Ramdatt Sankar of Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo. Despite requests, Sankar did not make himself available to speak to the media.  However, Minister Benn, who briefed media operatives, said that the vessel’s cargo included rice, wallaba posts, dried coconuts and charcoal.
Minister Benn assured that a rescue team comprising the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard, fire officers and police was hurriedly dispatched. They mounted the overturned vessel and proceeded hammering the hull in an effort to attract a response from the missing man. Initially the search and rescue team said, they got two responses, and they proceeded to comb the waterways in the immediate surroundings.  However, their search was constrained, due to the lack of divers.
Initially, the Minister said, the Coast Guards tried getting a service boat with a cutting torch with which to cut the hull of the ship. Pathetically however, the final word was that cutting the hull of the ship had serious implications for both the missing man and ship, since, with air now entering the vessel, it would be forced downward. As a result, after about one hour combing the waters, the search was called off for the night and the area marked to facilitate salvaging this morning.
Meanwhile, asked about safety arrangements on the ship, Minister Benn said he was assured by the captain of the vessel that there was adequate safety jackets on board.
Meanwhile, the owner of the vessel and his family members hurried down to the scene, but late into the night, relatives of the missing man had still not turned up at Muneshwar’s Wharf.
Another man who gave his name as Carlos, De Freitas, was very distraught and said that he was a shipper, sending a consignment of about 73,000 coconuts to a purchaser in Trinidad. The consignment was jointly owned by De Freitas and his son, Mark, and the value was about $4.38M. He said he was at his La Grange home yesterday afternoon, washing his car, when the broker phoned to alert him of the disaster.