Fatalities, injuries among seafarers rising – SIRC study

Fatalities, injuries among seafarers rising – study
GENIVI FACTAO February 20, 2019 https://www.manilatimes.net/fatalities-injuries-among-seafarers-rising-s...

The seafaring industry is still seen as a dangerous profession, as the number of deaths, including by suicide, continue to rise, according to the Seafarers International Research Centre (SIRC) of Cardiff University, Wales.

A research entitled “Fatalities and injuries among seafarers in the period 2000 to 2016” showed that seafarer fatalities had increased from 2008 to 2016. Researchers have seen a broadly rising trend — the strongest was from 2011 onwards, such that in 2016 there were 69 fatalities reported by three maritime administrations.

“Considered over a very long period of time, there is little doubt that the shipping industry is generally becoming safer. However, the trends revealed by these data suggest that in relation to seafarer mortality, the industry remains exposed,” the research noted.

In the eight-year period covering 2000 to 2007, based on calculations, the average annual fatality figure stood at 64.3; and in the eight-year period, from 2009 to 2016, the average annual fatality figure was at 56.91, based on the research conducted by Helen Sampson and Neil Ellis of the Seafarers International Research Center of Cardiff University.

The research noted that for the whole 17-year period, there were more fatalities, in numeric terms, in 2016 than there were in 2000.

The researchers approached the top 30 maritime administrations, as defined by the volume of gross tonnage recorded in Lloyd’s Register Fairplay World Fleet Statistics 2005, and IHS Fairplay World Fleet Statistics 2010. Then, asked for data on accidents involving vessels under their flag and/or occurring in their national waters.

Twenty-six administrations responded to the query and 25 of them indicated that they did collect such data. But, after lengthy negotiations, only 16 administrations provided accident data, with seven of the datasets including information on accidents that involved personnel on-board.

Notwithstanding the patchy nature of the response from maritime administrations, the researchers persisted in gathering data. As a result, they got information for the period 2000 to 2016 and had compiled a dataset, detailing injuries to seafarers and seafarer fatalities relating to those working on board commercial cargo/passenger vessels.

The research showed, all fatalities excluding suicides, whether natural cause or accidental death, the trend was broadly downwards from the year 2000 until 2008. In 2000, there were 88 fatalities, excluding suicides recorded by four maritime administrations, and in 2008 this number had fallen to 32 fatalities.

“It is evident that the lack of data from the administration ‘Atlas’ in 2008 had a significant impact on the decrease in fatalities reported in these two single years.

“However, if we add the average number of fatalities recorded by Atlas in the period 2000 to 2005 (which stood at 32.3), we still see a decline in fatalities, suggesting that the downward trend reflects a genuine decline for the period 2000 to 2008,” it said.

Researchers took notice of the trend for administrations named only as “Electra” and “Diadem” combined, they saw that there was a broadly downward trend with regard to the numbers of fatalities, excluding the recorded suicides in the period 2000 to 2010. However, fatalities then rose in the period 2010 to 2016.

“The years 2015 and 2016 had the joint highest numbers of fatalities with 41 in each year, for the entire period and the year 2013 had the next highest number of fatalities with 37, in the overall period,” it said.

“When we combine fatalities such as natural causes and accidental death, with suicides we can observe that, overall, suicides constitute a relatively small proportion of total fatalities in the period 2000 to 2016,” it added.

Out of the total 1,039 fatalities over the 17-year period, 3.7 percent or 38 cases were identified as suicides.

The data painted a grim picture, if suicide is taken at face value

However, despite the sharp increase in recorded suicides in the period 2009 onwards, the evidence strongly indicated that this reflected poor recording practices prior to 2009.

“In numeric terms, therefore, the picture for suicides was likely to be much worse than represented in these data whilst at the same time we were unable to conclude from the information provided that suicides amongst seafarers were increasing,” it said.

For injuries, the researchers found under-reporting of such incidents by the maritime administrations. The data were least conclusive with regard to injuries to seafarers and as a result, researchers do not feel that reporting their findings in relation to seafarer injuries provided any value.

“Ideally, to assess the risk associated with the shipping industry and/or consider whether safety is improving, we require population data as well as consistent reporting and recording of deaths and injuries to seafarers. From these we would be able to construct fatality rates, injury rates, and suicide rates which would allow for more effective data interpretation,” concluded the research.