Accessibility links

Breaking News

Two More Victims of Hungarian Boat Disaster Found


A GoogleEarth image combined with a sonar image of the sunk boat is presented during a press conference about the recovery operations in the Counter Terrorism Centre (TEK) headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, June 3, 2019.
A GoogleEarth image combined with a sonar image of the sunk boat is presented during a press conference about the recovery operations in the Counter Terrorism Centre (TEK) headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, June 3, 2019.

Hungarian police say they have found two more victims from last week's collision between a tour boat and a cruise ship on the Danube River.

Divers found the body of a woman outside the sunken tour boat Mermaid Monday at the site of the disaster in Budapest. The second body was pulled out of the river in a town about 100 kilometers (62 miles) downstream.

Nineteen passengers aboard the Mermaid are still missing, and rescuers say there is almost no chance of finding any more survivors.

Thirty-three South Korean tourists and two Hungarian crew members were onboard the Mermaid as it sailed side-by-side with a Viking cruise ship last Wednesday.

Surveillance video shows the Viking ship striking the Mermaid as both vessels passed under the Margit Bridge across the Danube.

The Mermaid capsized and sank in just seven seconds, giving passengers and two Hungarian crew members almost no time to get to safety.

Only seven people survived. The two crew members are among the dead.

Hungarian police arrested the Ukrainian captain of the Viking cruise ship, identifying him as Yuriy C. Police say he is suspected of "endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths."

The captain has denied any wrongdoing.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG