Budapest: Hungarian police on Thursday launched a criminal probe into one of the country’s worst boat disasters that left seven South Korean tourists dead and 21 others still missing.
The Mermaid sightseeing boat collided with a much larger passenger river cruise vessel on the Danube in the heart of Budapest on Wednesday evening and went down in just seven seconds, police said.
Army boats were scouring the murky Danube on Thursday as dozens of people looked on from a bridge.
Thirty-five people were on board the 26-metre Mermaid when it sank near the parliament building, most of them South Korean tourists including a six-year-old girl.
Army divers have joined police in the search, but the operation has been complicated by high water levels and a fast-moving current after weeks of heavy rainfall.
Three bodies have already been found several kilometres south of the disaster site, police said.
A captain of a boat that was near the accident told online daily 24.hu he saw two elderly women being pulled out of the water.
“I am still in shock. I have never seen such horror in my life,” the unnamed man was quoted as saying.
“We were at the parliament when we heard that people were in the water — everyone stopped right away and started helping out.”
‘Criminal negligence’
Police showed journalists security camera footage from a bridge in which the Mermaid is seen colliding with the Viking Sigyn river cruise boat.
“The footage shows that before the collision the Mermaid turned towards the Viking Sigyn cruise boat, for some reason, the Viking then turned the small boat over, and it sank within seven seconds,” police colonel Adrian Pal told a press conference.
He said a criminal investigation has been launched for “criminal negligence on public waterways,” adding that police were questioning the Ukrainian captain of the Sigyn.
Viking Cruises confirmed the Sigyn was “involved in an incident” on the Danube but there were no injuries to its crew or guests.
“We are cooperating with the authorities as required,” it said.
The Mermaid was regularly serviced and had no apparent technical faults, Mihaly Toth, a spokesman for its owner Panorama Deck told Hungarian news agency MTI, adding that it was on “a routine sightseeing trip”.
Hungary’s emergency services spokesman Pal Gyorfi said that seven rescued people were taken to hospital with symptoms of hypothermia and shock.
— AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
