Mid-Autumn Festival was a time for family reunions and moon cakes, but it was marked by tragedy too. An overloaded boat carrying more than 50 people sank in the Fuyi River in Shaoyang city of Hunan province, causing the death of at least 10 children, says an article in People's Daily. Excerpts:

The Shaoyang tragedy shows that some people don't care much about children's lives, because most of the more than 50 people on the boat, good enough to carry only 14 passengers, were middle school students returning home.

The first fault was that of the sand dredgers that have made the peaceful river dangerous, because it was in their steel ropes that the propeller of the boat was entangled. Sand dredgers were forbidden for years in the river, for they have caused accidents in the river earlier too.

Supervision of river traffic had been lax, but the latest tragedy has exposed bigger supervision problems such as overloading of passengers on boats.

The second fault was that of the middle school. Although school authorities had an agreement with the boat owner to carry students across the river, they should have carried out regular checks to ensure that the boat was not overloaded. Also, they should have paid greater attention to the children's safety because they were without the protection of parents or guardians.

The last fault is that of the local custom, which does not allow girls to enter water bodies and thus prevents them from learning how to swim, because most of the victims were girls. Perhaps the tragedy will force parents and guardians to teach their daughters how to swim. But it's a tragedy that they will learn a lesson after the loss of so many lives.