7 Dead as Hungarian Boat Capsizes on Danube

At least seven people were killed and more than a dozen were missing after a pleasure boat carrying South Korean tourists capsized Wednesday on the flooding Danube in the Hungarian capital, police and ambulance crews said. 


The boat reportedly collided with another tourist vessel shortly after 9 p.m. (1900 GMT) near the Hungarian parliament building, then turned over on the river, which has been flooding, with very strong currents, while a rainstorm enveloped Budapest. 


Mihaly Toth, a spokesman for the boat's owner, told state television that the boat, the Mermaid, had sunk. 


A massive rescue effort was underway with boats, divers, spotlights and radar scanning along the river several kilometers downstream. 


Police said the boat had been carrying 33 South Korean tourists plus a crew of two. A state media reporter cited a South Korean Embassy official as saying the passengers included children. Journalists at the scene said they saw children's ambulances on the riverbank. 


An ambulance spokesman told state television that 14 people had been pulled out of the water so far. Seven had died, with the other seven suffering from hypothermia but stable. It was not immediately clear how many of the others on board were still missing. 




The hours that had passed since the accident made it less likely that new survivors would be found in the central Budapest area, as the strong currents carried people far downstream, emergency rescue chiefs told state media. 


The National Ambulance Service was searching along a long stretch downstream from Budapest and was on alert on the entire Danube stretch south of Budapest in Hungary, where all boat traffic has been halted. 


Television footage showed the bank of the Danube closed off by police on the Pest side, across from the World Heritage site of Buda Castle. 


The Danube's flooding and currents made rescue efforts extremely difficult, a rescue diver told the state broadcaster, adding that the waters of the Danube were only about 10 to 12 degrees Celsius (50 to 54 Fahrenheit). 


The boat was a 27-meter (89-foot) double-decker river cruise boat that can hold up to 60 people and was equipped with a 150-horsepower engine, its owner, Panorama Deck Ltd., told state media. 


"We are mobilizing every resource we have to protect human lives," they added. 


The Mermaid had been in the company's fleet since 2003 and received regular maintenance, they said. 


According to boat register Hajoregiszter.hu, the Mermaid was manufactured in 1949 in the Soviet Union and received a Hungarian-made engine in the 1980s. 


Neither the boat registry nor the boat's operator could be immediately reached for comment on the boat's age.