Bagerhat: Four days after a coal-laden cargo vessel capsized in the Pashur River under Mongla upazila, a salvage team reached the spot on Thursday to pull off the sunken ship.

However, the team did not start the salvage work till filing of this report around 8:30pm, said sources at the Department of Forest.

Ship owners said they engaged private vessel salvage company ‘Hossain Salvage Enterprise’ to retrieve the vessel and a 40-member team of the company reached the spot in the afternoon.

They will start the primary work after the ebb-tide at night, said Babu Bhuiyan who is supervising the salvage work. ‘The coal will be removed from the ship from Friday using a dredger and the vessel will be dragged to the shore once it gets lighter,’ he said.

Babu also said the salvage work will be completed in 15 days.

Earlier on April 14, ‘MV-Bilash’ carrying 775 tonnes of coal capsized in the Pashur River in the Sundarbans. The incident occurred as the ship ran aground in a hidden shoal as it followed a wrong route.

With the latest one, at least eight commercial ships sank in the water routes running through the Sundarbans in the last five years.