Over 1,000 lives lost at sea in 2012 - IMO
The number of lives lost annually at sea has been over 1,000 for each of the past five years, Media Center of the International Maritime Organization cites IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu as saying at the opening of the IMO’s first meeting of the year.
Despite the difficulty in obtaining precise and reliable data for such losses, he said that approximate figures for 2012 included approximately 100 lives lost in the fishing sector, 400 in domestic operations, and around 500 in other categories, including international shipping.
An ambitious, but achievable target, he said, would be to aim for a 50 per cent reduction, to no more than 500 lives lost annually, by 2015. He said that the matter could be addressed at the IMO Symposium on Future Ship Safety in June, and went on to identify a number of mechanisms that could help the target to be reached, specifically:
• implementation of the Torremolinos Protocol through the Cape Town Agreement, to improve fishing vessel safety
• IMO’s Technical Cooperation activities in the field of domestic ferry safety
• the Secretary-General’s own initiative for an “Accident Zero” campaign, in conjunction with the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA).
He added that, in the first instance, IMO should consider establishing a mechanism for the collection and collation of statistics on lives lost to enable formal, official figures to be produced.
