| Pandaw brushes off collision “drama”

PANDAW has hit back at the “very negative” media coverage it received after the Kindat Pandaw collided with a bridge in the Upper Ganges in India last week (CW 06 Dec), with the river cruise line saying “collisions on busy waterways do occasionally happen”.

Pandaw founder Paul Strachan said in a statement released yesterday that the “relatively minor incident quickly became a drama” due to the “complete overreaction” of the tour guide, who ordered an evacuation in a decision which the line said should have been made by the master.

After interviewing key crew members and the master, Pandaw concluded that “a very small amount of water” entered the ship, and underscored its ability to cope with water ingress, saying the crew can “temporarily patch any hole in a moment”.

Strachan ended the statement with an apology, and said Pandaw is taking a number of measures to ensure similar incidents don’t happen again, including more crew training and a revision to the Upper Ganges itinerary, which will see the vessel “avoid the section with the pontoon bridges”.

In stark contrast to Pandaw’s account of the incident, British journalist Sue Bryant, who was on board the vessel at the time, described it on Twitter as a “major crash” that “ripped a pontoon bridge off its hinges” and left passengers shaken.

Bryant also shared an image (above) in a tweet that shows the significant damage to the bridge caused by the impact.