Danube disaster captain detained by police
Criminal inquiry launched into collision between two boats in Budapest in which seven tourists were killed
HUNGARIAN police have detained the captain of a luxury river cruiser that collided with a tour boat on the Danube river in Budapest, killing at least seven people and leaving 21 missing.
Disaster struck on Wednesday night when the 443ft Viking Sigyn, a Swissregistered cruise boat, struck a far smaller sightseeing vessel carrying 33 South Korean tourists and two crew as the two tried to pass under a bridge on the river by the Hungarian parliament.
The Sig yn, which was en route to Passau in Germany, suffered only minor damage to its hull.
Police said in a statement: “The Ukrainian captain of the cruise ship was questioned as a suspect by investigators in relation to ‘endangering waterborne traffic resulting in mulitple deaths’.
“After being questioned, 64-year-old Yuriy C, a resident of Odessa, was detained and a request for his arrest has been made,” the statement added.
The suspect was the captain of the 135m (443ft) four-storey “longship”, which collided with the 26m (85ft) Mermaid at 9.05pm local time.
Yesterday the police launched a criminal investigation into the incident for “criminal negligence on public waterways”.
Video of the incident released by police shows the Sigyn hitting the Mermaid from the stern. The Sig yn then rolls over it, sending it to the bottom of the Danube in seconds. “Both ships were heading north and they arrived between two pillars of the Margit Bridge, but for some reason the Mermaid turned in front of the Viking ship,” said Colonel Adrian Pal of the police. Rescuers believe that, given the speed of the collision, nobody on board the Mermaid had a chance to don a lifejacket and that anybody not on the boat’s open deck probably went down with the vessel.
A spokesman for Viking River Cruises said in a statement yesterday that the Sigyn was near a Hungarian tourist boat “when it was involved in an incident” on the river at 9pm local time. It added that no one aboard the Viking ship was injured and that it was co-operating with the authorities.
Huge boats have become a common sight on the Danube at Budapest because of an increase in the popularity of river cruises, and the accident prompted Istvan Tarlos, the mayor of Budapest, to suggest stopping what he called “hotel ships” from mooring in the capital.
“We have to look at whether the city centre is a good location for these hotel boats,” he said, adding that having them anchored in popular stretches of the river undermined safety. Their ports may have to be moved out [of the centre],” he continued. Meanwhile, the authorities in Budapest said that hopes of finding survivors were fading fast as rescuers battled a rapid and swirling current on the Danube, and deep water caused by days of heavy rain.
The Hungarian press reported that the authorities had asked the Serbian government to look for bodies on Serb stretches of the river. South Korea said it was sending 27 search-and-rescue personnel to Hungary to help in the rescue effort. But salvaging the wreck of the Mermaid, where bodies could lie trapped, may take days owing to the fast current and poor visibility.