By
Rebecca Gibson |
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) must focus on significantly improving the safety of life at sea and answer questions regarding recent passenger shipping accidents to remain credible, says IMO secretary-general Koji Sekimizu.
Opening the 93rd Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) session –which will run from 14 to 23 May 2014 in London, UK – Sekimizu highlighted that over the last two and a half years, there have been 2,932 lives lost in domestic passenger ship accidents around the world.
“The committee will be aware that in its strategic directions, IMO’s highest priority is the safety of human life at sea,” said Sekimizu. “In particular, Strategic Direction 5 states that greater emphasis will be accorded to ensuring that all systems related to enhancing the safety of human life at sea are adequate, including those concerned with large concentrations of people – obviously passenger ships with hundreds of passengers.”
During his opening speech, Sekimizu called for safety to be improved on all vessels, whether domestic or international. Supported by Interferry and other international organisations, the IMO has provided technical assistance to a number of member states as part of its project on domestic ferry safety, but aims to increase the scope of the project. Currently the maritime administration of a country’s government can determine which safety standards should be applied to passenger ships sailing domestic voyages, as the Safety of Life At Sea (SOLAS) regulations are not intended to be applied to – or enforceable on – vessels operating on domestic routes.
“At the Legal Committee, I stated that, in my view, the time has come to step forward to take further action to improve the safety of passenger ships carrying hundreds of passengers, regardless of the nature of navigation, either international or domestic,” said Sekimizu. “In my humble opinion, the general public should enjoy at least the same level of minimum safety standards whether on international or domestic voyages – standards that are good enough to prevent the sort of accidents that have occurred recently.”
To strengthen its existing project on domestic ferry safety – which is part of the Integrated Technical Co-operation Programme (ITCP) – Sekimizu proposed that the IMO develops comprehensive standards and recommendations regarding various elements of ferry operations.To be adopted with the guidance and assistance of the IMO, the proposed standards would cover design, engineering, structure modifications, operation, manning, training, survey and certification for domestic ferries. Meanwhile, the IMO will engage with current member states and organisations participating in the ITCP project to determine how it can enhance current domestic ferry safety.
In addition, Sekimizu drew attention to the ongoing operation to recover Costa Concordia, which hits the rocks and capsized off the coast of Giglio, Italy, on 13 January 2012. Since the incident, which claimed 32 lives, Costa Cruises has submitted a casualty investigation report to the IMO and the incident has been debated at three MSC sessions. However, Sekimizu said the general public needs answers to simple questions, rather than simply having access to investigation reports.
“In my view, what the general public and maritime community wish to know is not that IMO has produced hundreds of papers,” said Sekimizu. “The general public and I would like to have simple answers to simple questions. What went wrong? What were the lessons learned? What measures have been adopted or will be adopted in response?”
He added that the MSC should use its 93rd session to review all of its actions to date and summarise the current status of its response to ensure that the general public can understand how effective the IMO’s role and actions have been in the wake of the accident.
“If the MSC cannot respond to such simple questions in a concise but also comprehensive manner two years after the accident, who can say that IMO has responded well?” said Sekimizu. “In this centenary year of SOLAS and after two years’ extensive discussion, if IMO could not clearly provide a definitive statement on its response to the Costa Concordia incident, IMO’s credibility as the global safety standard-setting body in the UN system will be seriously questioned.”
While the cruise industry has worked hard to implement new safety measures have been adopted and proposed new work programmes, Sekimizu said more work was needed to improve the survivability of cruise passenger ships. He also highlighted that operational and management measures need to be strengthened to ensure similar events can be prevented in future.
“With that incident, the survivability of modern cruise passenger ships in the case of grounding and breach of the hull by hitting rocks was highlighted in the most dramatic way,” said Sekimizu. “This requires serious efforts of not only operators and management but also naval architects and designers and the cruise industry to explore a new design of cruise passenger ships in the future.”
According to Sekimizu, as the industry marks 100 years since the first SOLAS conventions were adopted in 1914, it is more important than ever that the IMO proves it is a truly global organisation that is working to improve the safety of passenger ships.
He said: “People will question whether IMO has become a truly global organisation dealing with the safety of ships, in particular the safety of passenger ships of all member governments of IMO in the world, that are, in many cases, the only available means of public transportation for thousands and thousands of people in almost every country in the developing world.”