A tourist boat on Thursday capsized and sank during a fierce storm on a lake in Missouri, killing at least 11 people, the local sheriff said.
The incident on Table Rock Lake occurred as thunderstorms rumbled through the US’ Midwest and left another seven people hospitalized while at least five were still missing, Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader told reporters, adding there were children among the dead.
The local branch of the Cox Medical Center said that two people were in critical condition.
The sheriff added that several people had made it safely to shore.
Divers had arrived at the scene to assist in the search, Rader said, ending the rescue efforts for the night at approximately 11pm, with plans to reboot operations yesterday morning.
Rader said that 31 people had been aboard the amphibious vessel, known as a duck boat for its wheels that allow it to ride on land in addition to floating low on the water.
The incident was caused by heavy winds, he said, adding that the tour boat had been making its way to land.
Two boats had been on the water, one of which returned safely, Rader said.
The artificial lake where the boat sank is a popular tourist draw in the state’s south, near the city of Branson on the border with Arkansas.
The storm appeared to come out of nowhere, said Rick Kettels, who owns the Lakeside Resort on the lake’s shores.
“It just came up real quick,” he said, adding that the storm struck at about 6:15pm. “I’ve been here most of my life and I never saw a storm this bad.”
Kettels said there had not been a warning from local weather stations.
When the storm appeared imminent, he rushed to the lake to urge guests and boats to evacuate as rough waves began slamming into his resort pier.
A string of severe thunderstorms had barreled through the area causing significant tree damage and downed power lines, said Steve Lindenberg, a meteorologist in Springfield, Missouri, about 72km north of Branson.
At that office, meteorologists clocked winds of 119kph, issuing a warning to the area at about 6:30pm.
Branson Airport experienced a peak gust of 101kph, Lindenberg said.
“Our hearts are heavy tonight,” the City of Branson said in a statement. “This is a very trying time for all those who are involved.”
“The City of Branson may be small in size but it is big at its heart,” the statement said.
Branson City Hall was open to victims, family members and survivors, with support from the American Red Cross and city officials.
The US National Transportation Safety Board was to send a team early yesterday to investigate the incident, the agency said.
Branson is a vacation destination popular for its theaters and country music, including a Civil War-themed attraction opened by singer Dolly Parton.
The incident in Missouri was part of a storm system that struck much of the Midwest late on Thursday, meteorologists said.
Several tornadoes tore through the state of Iowa just north of Missouri, causing injuries as well as structural damage to a number of buildings. No fatalities were reported there.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to