Crunch time as ship hits wharf
EYEWITNESSES have recounted the horrific moment a towering cruise ship collided with a dock and a tourist boat in Venice, injuring four women including at least one Australian.
The accident has reignited calls for large vessels to be banned from the lagoon city.
MSC Cruises said the 2679passenger MSC Opera, a 54mhigh and 275m-long liner which dwarfed the Venice skyline, was approaching a passenger terminal on the Giudecca canal when it hit the dock and a nearby ferry after a technical problem.
Footage of the incident showed passengers who had been waiting at a wharf in San Basilio-Zattere fleeing as the huge ship, its horns blaring, crashed into the much smaller, moored River Countess boat, which had 110 people aboard.
Australian man Robert Lauretti was having breakfast with friends on the balcony of the MSC Opera when the collision happened.
Mr Lauretti said he knew something was wrong when the ship was pointed at the pier just seconds before.
“I knew at about 90 seconds out from impact as the ship seemed to be pointed at the pier,” he told the ABC.
“You could see that there was no way the ship was going to turn in time.”
The Carrara man said he was worried about the people on the river cruiser that the ship had smashed into.
He heard people screaming and metal scraping as the boat collided with the dock.
“I could see lots of people screaming and running in every direction to get off,” he said.
“At that point, we could hear the crunching of pier and scraping of metal as the boat slowly collided into the dock.”
A nearby resident told Italy’s state television she thought the ship was “going to crash into my house”.
Pino Musolino, chairman of the northern Adriatic Sea port authority, said four people had suffered minor injuries in Sunday’s crash.
Emergency workers said the cruise ship lost control after a steel cable that tied it to a tugboat snapped.
Local media said that the four injured were women aged between 67 and 72 from Australia, New Zealand and the US.
The safety of big ships in European cities has been highlighted by the crash last week of a cruise liner with a pleasure boat on the Danube in Budapest, killing seven people with another 21 presumed dead.
I COULD SEE LOTS OF PEOPLE SCREAMING AND RUNNING IN EVERY DIRECTION TO GET OFF (THE PIER)
WITNESS ROBERT LAURETTI