Cruise with 29 Indian crew stranded after 5 virus cases
NEW DELHI: A British cruise ship with 29 Indian crew members remained anchored off the coast of the Bahamas on Sunday after five people on board tested positive for Covid-19.
In total, 20 guests on the Braemar, operated by Britain-based Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, were showing influenza-like symptoms and were isolated along with 20 crew members, including a doctor, its website said on Sunday. This includes the five people who tested positive earlier.
The company did not divulge the nationalities of those in isolation citing privacy reasons. It confirmed that there were no Indian guests on board. “There are 29 Indian nationals on board as part of our crew,” Ellis Barker, a company official told HT over email. The guests are mainly from the UK, but there are a small number of people from other countries as well.
The ship has been offered “safe haven” in The Bahamas in order to “take on food, fuel, medication and other supplies for those on board”, the cruise operator said on its website. It is not however permitted to dock. “We have been working around the clock with the Bahamian authorities to get supplies on to the ship but it is taking longer than we expected to get the necessary clearances,” Peter Deer, Managing Director of Fred. Olsen
Cruise Lines, said.
Four crew members and one guest tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday when the ship was docked at Willemstad on island of Curaçao. On Thursday, the ship was unable to dock at Barbados, the final port of its Western Caribbean and Central America cruise. “No other Caribbean ports were willing to accept the ship because of local sensitivities towards Covid-19 Coronavirus,” the cruise’s website said. For now, the Braemar is quarantined at sea.
On Saturday, Chile quarantined more than 1,300 people aboard two cruise ships after an 85-year-old man aboard one of them tested positive for the Covid-19.
The British citizen showed symptoms of the virus after getting off the Silver Explorer ship in the far southern port of Caleta Tortel. The man was later transferred to a hospital where he tested positive for the virus.
The other ship, the Azmara Pursuit - with 665 passengers and nearly 400 crew - had earlier crossed into Chilean waters from the southern Argentine port of Ushuaia. It was currently near the port of Chacabuco after authorities banned it from landing passengers there, on grounds that it was carrying suspected cases of the Covid-19. Both ships are cruising the Chilean fjords in Patagonia.