Experts Call A New Dragon Triangle Appeared Near Indonesia

The collision of Iranian oil tanker Sanchi with a large cargo ship Hong Kong, CV Crystal, on January 6, 2018 then made maritime experts conclude there is a "new Bermuda Triangle" in the Indo-Pacific, near the territory of Indonesia.

As a result of the collision, Sanchi-some call it a Panamanian ship-carrying nearly 1 million barrels of Iranian oil to South Korea, burning for more than a week. All the crew of tankers, ie 32 people were killed.

The term "new Bermuda Triangle" was leveled by many experts and reviewed former captain Rahul Khanna tanker ship. He has over 14 years of marine experience and is now a Global Head of Marine Risk Consulting in Allianz.

He blamed the accident on the fatal combination of how many ships passed through the area, bad weather, and lack of security concerns by the countries that operated the delivery of goods there.

"Some (parties) have dubbed this vast territory as the 'new Bermuda Triangle'," Khanna said.

"I will not go that far, but it is certainly the number one region in the whole world for major shipping incidents. Not only are the oceans here very busy, but also vulnerable to bad weather and although I can not speculate on this, some safety standards in this region are not always as high as expected from established international standards, "commented Khanna. multimedia United States, Big Think, Tuesday (6/2/2018).

Why the location of the tragic accident, about 160 nautical miles away from Shanghai, China in the East China Sea, compared to the Bermuda Triangle? For one thing, the region that extends to Indochina, Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula and Japan has become a frontrunner in maritime accidents in the world.

According to marine insurance company Allianz, in 2016 alone, 34 ships had a deadly accident in the region. That is 40 percent of the global shipping losses of 85 vessels.

To get an overall picture, the "Safety and Delivery 2017 Review", prepared by Allianz. The data is an observation on 25,898 shipping incidents covering 1,186 "total losses" in the period January 2007 to December 2016.

While the total amount of losses dropped globally by 50 percent, this effect is much less in the waters of East / Southeast Asia. According to a MarineLink report, an average of 39 total ship losses per year occur in the region. That number is about one third of the total worldwide.

Not only civilian ships, a series of warships the United States Navy (US) has also experienced an incident in the "new Bermuda Triangle" this. Some of the fared US warships include USS Lake Champlain, USS Fitzgerald, USS Antietam and USS John McCain. At least, 17 US sailors were killed in a disaster involving the destroyers of USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain.

Volker Dierks, who heads Allianz's shipping insurance for central and eastern Europe, considers the incident as the fact that "the vessel is getting bigger", which increases the risk of collision.

Disasters that hit the ships in the region include flooding in the hull and drowning, damaging, fires, explosions to collisions with other ships. Although nothing very mysterious might happen if the incident were considered individually, the number of incidents in that area is worthy of comparison with the tragedy in the Bermuda Triangle.

In the case of the wreck of the USS John McCain warship, the cause is a human error that causes "steering confusion".