How safe is the Seine?

Press, 28 June 1989, Page 18

How safe is the Seine?

By

ROBIN SMYTH,

in Paris The death of a Portuguese student on a Bateau-Mouche pleasure boat on the Seine at night has cast a shadow over plans to start a river passenger service though Paris. Manuel Bessa died in March when his head was crushed in a glass door while the BateauMouche, on which he was a latenight sightseer, collided with an on-coming barge where the river divides to pass islands in the heart of the city. Tourists in the packed boat who were sitting on the forward deck fled as they saw the barge bearing down on them. Firemen evacuated the 500 passengers, most of whom were unhurt. Bessa’s death was the first fatal injury on pleasure boats which take 4.5 million tourists a year under the Seine bridges. An official inquiry will now decide whether the Bateau-Mouche sailed through a red light which controls one-way river traffic round the islands. The Bateau-Mouche pilot says the gravel barge was travelling without lights. The accident is an embarrassment for Georges Sarre, Socialist secretary of state for road and river transport, who has inaugurated a new passenger water coach service through the city. For the first time, pedestrians will be able to cross Paris by water, by-passing blocked streets, crowded buses and metro trains. But the question now is whether the Seine, the most exploited waterway in western Europe after the Rhine, is becoming too congested for safety. Jean Bruel, proprietor of the Bateaux-Mouches, questions the viability of the traffic light system. “How do you think that the forward movement of a boat can be braked at a red light?” he says. The inquiry result will indicate whether passenger ferries present an added security risk as they weave in and out of barge traffic in a city which is the largest commercial river port in the country. Copyright London Observer.