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| Several dead after river boat capsizes in Budapest | Several dead after river boat capsizes in Budapest |
| (31 minutes later) | |
| At least seven people have died after a sightseeing boat sank in the Danube, close to the Hungarian parliament building in central Budapest, according to MTI, Hungarian state television. | |
| Citing the interior ministry, MTI said there had been 33 passengers and two crew on board the boat when it collided with another vessel. Most of the passengers were reportedly South Korean tourists. | |
| State TV said that 14 people had been lifted from the river so far, seven of them dead. | |
| There were emergency vehicles positioned at regular intervals along a two-mile stretch of the river in the early hours of Thursday, as the search for survivors continued, hampered by driving rain and poor visibility. | |
| “There was a tragic boat accident at around 9pm [on Wednesday],” said Gábor Csató, the CEO of the Hungarian ambulance service, speaking from a makeshift emergency services command point on the river bank shortly before midnight local time. “We’ve put a huge effort into the rescue involving 17 ambulances, fire engines, police and boats, looking along both sides of the Danube.” | |
| He said there had been “between 35 and 40” people on board the boat, and that the current in the Danube was so strong that some people had been found many miles downstream outside Budapest city limits. One person was pulled from the water near Petőfi Bridge, around two miles downstream from the accident. Eight people were being treated in hospital for hypothermia, he said, while the search for the remaining missing people continued. | |
| Boats docked at the side of the river turned their searchlights on to the water to help the hunt for survivors, while a film crew that had been filming on Liberty Bridge, downstream from the accident site, also turned their lights on to the water, the website index.hu reported. | |
| A rescue diver told Hungarian television that the water in the Danube was only about 10-12C. There had been thunderstorms and heavy rain throughout the afternoon and evening before the accident. | |
| Hungarian news outlets identified the boat that sank as the Mermaid, described as one of the smaller boats in the fleet of the company that owns it. It has two decks and a capacity of 60, or 45 for sightseeing cruises. The owner told Hungarian news agencies that the boat had completely sunk. | |
| Hundreds of boats ply the Danube in and around Budapest each day, from small sight-seeing boats to larger river cruises which dock in the city before continuing along the river. | |
| In the wake of the accident, police ordered all shipping traffic to cease in central Budapest with the exception of rescue boats. | |
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| Europe | Europe |
| news | news |
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