Authorities seek to prevent future river collisions

There is little that any of us can do to ease the pain suffered by the family of Vicente Avila following the boat captain’s death on Sunday on the New River. But today authorities and tour operators are looking for ways to make sure that this kind of accident will never happen again.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
While the Belize Port Authority and police continue to investigate the cause of Sunday morning?s fatal boat accident on the New River, many who know the river say it was a collision just waiting to happen. The New River between Tower Hill and the Lamanai Archaeological site is amaze of blind curves and narrow channels, often shaded by over grown vines and branches. Ironically the same features that make the route dangerous also make it exciting for visitors.

Julian Avila, Father of the Deceased
?There are curves every where, it is a river full of curves that is the beauty of the river. It is something that the tourists like to see when drivers are just taking the curves.?

This is the curve where the Mrs. Cristina and the Rio Reina met on Sunday. Initial reports indicate that boat captains Vicente Avila and Fidencio Vellos were travelling in opposite directions at high speed and could not avoid a collision. Vellos, who was driving the bigger vessel with twenty-seven passengers on board, contends he was not speeding but that to avoid the accident he pulled a hard right that caused the Rio Reina to ram into mangrove trees on the bank, but not before making contact with the smaller boat that flipped the Mrs. Cristina sending all of her fourteen passengers into the water.

Emily Smith, Accident Survivor, Mrs. Cristina
?It makes me very nervous and I am ready to go home now, but hopefully that will pass, and someday I will want to come back.?

Captain Vicente Avila sustained a fatal head injury caused by his boat?s propeller after he was thrown overboard. The fatality was the first of it?s kind in the New River for this year but boat operators say that it will not be the last.

Errol Wade, Boat Captain, Lamania Eco Adventures
?It is so sad that it had to take a life. He was one of my friends. I mean we are competitors in the business, but it had to take somebody?s life for something to happen. It?s sad.?

Errol Wade, a boat captain for Lamanai Eco Adventures has been conducting tours on the river for over two decades. He strongly believes large boats like the Rio Reina are not suitable for the area, because their size makes it even more difficult to manoeuvre through the narrow winding river. Wade says there are several tributaries along the way that boat operators can use to get to the Lamanai site and he hopes the authorities will now seriously look at how they can use alternate routes to better manage the flow of traffic on the river.

Errol Wade
?We have some very narrow spots, and we have other places that we could take. I think they should implement it and make it law that we take the back rivers, because there are different places. It would only take a minute in difference to go through the back river, and it would save lives.?

Julian Avila
?Usually those boats when they are on a curve, it is not like car when you are riding on a curve that the car can sort of brakes up and take the curve as you would like to have it. The boat you cannot do that. You either have to stop or when you take the curve so fast then your boat is going to swing or it is going to slide towards the curve.?

Julian Avila believes that no matter how many alternate routes are used or signs erected the fierce competition will still cause collisions.

Julian Avila
?The river is a very dangerous river and I think it is not a matter of whether we can use other routes. Because we have been doing that, it?s a matter of how much respect we have for each other on the river. I do not see that. Because the business so demands it, you know especially the cruise ship people. If the cruise ship gets here at ten they want to be at Lamanai at eleven, eleven thirty they have their lunch and they want to be back by two, two thirty at the Tower Hill. Now that is what they do every time the cruise ships they come in, and every driver is doing that.?

Joel Goering, Accident Survivor, Mrs. Cristina
?I just ask questions about the speed on the rivers and if there should be laws with that and with our travel company. I realize that this is a very rare thing but we didn?t sign anything about there could be a danger and it might be something that they will have to look at in the future.?

It is not certain what actions will be taken to prevent another tragedy but all concerned agree that it?s sad that it took a fatality to prompt some concern.

Julian Avila
?Some of our investors are saying lets get into this business and do money right now. I do not think that that is the idea of tourism. Everybody speaks about tourism about being sustainable and as for many Belizeans as possible. Well let us do it the right way.?

Funeral services were held today for thirty-six year old Vicente Avila.