Seven South Korean tourists died and 21 others were missing after a sightseeing boat capsized and sank on the Danube River in Budapest, Hungarian and South Korean officials said yesterday.
The accident happened near the parliament building in the heart of the Hungarian capital after a collision with a larger river cruise boat during torrential rain at about 9:15pm on Wednesday, officials said.
A total of 33 South Koreans were on board, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, confirming the seven dead were citizens.
Photo: AP
The youngest was a six-year-old girl, travel agency officials said.
The 26m tourist boat, the Mermaid, was also carrying two Hungarian crew members.
“Our services have recorded the death of seven people,” Pal Gyorfi, a spokesman for Hungarian emergency services, said early yesterday morning. “Seven people have been taken to hospital in a stable condition with hypothermia and shock symptoms.”
“A further 21 people are missing,” Hungarian police spokesman Kristof Gal said. “Police are searching the river throughout the entire length of the Danube in Hungary south of where the incident took place.”
Local media reported that one of the bodies was found several kilometers south of the location of the collision, although Gal declined to confirm this.
The temperature of the river water is between 10°C and 15°C, local media reported.
The search for the missing with the help of divers and police shining lights continued through the night, a photographer at the scene said.
A film crew working from a bridge south of the accident site also used reflector lights to help light up the water through the gloom and pouring rain, local media reported.
Heavy rainfall since the beginning of this month has led to high water levels and a fast-moving river current, complicating rescue efforts.
The accident happened on a popular part of the Danube for pleasure trips, from where passengers can view the city and parliament building illuminated at night.
The boat was regularly serviced and had no apparent technical faults, Mihaly Toth, a spokesman for Panorama Deck, the company that owned the vessel, told Hungarian news agency MTI.
“It was a routine sightseeing trip,” Toth said. “We know nothing about how it happened, the authorities are investigating, all we know is that it sank quickly.”
An eyewitness told the Index.hu Web site that the Mermaid, which could hold 60 people, had been hit from behind by a larger cruise boat.
Web camera footage from a hotel rooftop posted on news Web sites appeared to show the larger boat colliding with the Mermaid.
The wreckage of the Mermaid was found on the riverbed after several hours of searching near Margaret Bridge, one of the main bridges connecting the two parts of the Hungarian capital, local media reported.
Access to the river has been blocked by the authorities, public television reported.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in instructed the government to “deploy all available resources” for the rescue, the presidential office said.
Seoul planned to send a team of 18 officials to assist the authorities in Budapest, Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha was to leave for Budapest yesterday as head of a government task force, the foreign ministry said.
South Korean embassy staff have also been assisting the emergency services in the identification of victims.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in