bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Park Chan-kyong

Agencies

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has ordered officials to quickly mobilise all available resources to support rescue work with the Hungarian government after a pleasure boat with 33 South Korean tourists aboard capsized in Budapest.
Seven South Korean tourists were reported dead and 21 others were missing. Seven people have been rescued. The boat had two crew.
The pleasure boat - the Mermaid - was hit by another tourist vessel Wednesday night on the Danube river near the Hungarian parliament building.
It then turned over on the river, which has been flooding, with very strong currents, while a rainstorm enveloped Budapest.
A witness on another boat said passengers were not given life jackets.




An emergency rescue team and military specialists were among an 18-member task force deployed by South Korea to Budapest Thursday.
Meanwhile, officials from the South Korean embassy in Budapest were assisting Hungarian officials in identifying those rescued and the deceased.
“What’s most important is speed,” Moon said at an emergency meeting.
The hours that have passed since the accident made it less likely that new survivors would be found in the central Budapest area, as the strong currents would have carried people far downstream.
Police and South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the boat had been carrying 33 South Koreans.
The South Korean tour agency, Very Good Tour, said 34 were on board, including 30 tourists, two guides, a photographer and the ship’s skipper.
It said most of the tourists were travelling with their family members. The status of a six-year-old girl is unclear as she does not appear on a list of survivors provided by the travel agency.

The tourists were on a 13-day package tour through eastern Europe and the Balkan states, according to the Very Good Tour agency in Seoul.
Very Good Tour official Lee Sang-moo said that it remained unclear whether the tourists were wearing life jackets at the time of the accident.
Ferry management arrested in Tanzania after 200 killed in accident
But he amended his earlier statement that the pleasure boat was anchored at the time of the accident.
“After finishing the trip, the pleasure boat was near the coast (for disembarkation) when she was rammed by the large ship”, he said
The company said it would send a team to assist and apologised to the families of those who died.

Police said they have launched a probe into “criminal negligence” and were questioning the Ukrainian captain of the other vessel.
A South Korean tourist who claimed he had seen the accident from another pleasure boat said passengers had not been given life jackets.
“Passengers were not given life jackets. Low safety consciousness,” he said.
This was confirmed by Kang Hyeong-sik, a senior official in charge of the safety of Koreans travelling abroad.
“It is customary for (South Korean) tourists not to wear life jackets on such a pleasure boat,” Kang said.
A South Korean who was on a similar tour package in August last year told a Seoul radio station: “I found there was no life jacket available on the pleasure boat we were on board.
“When I pointed it out to our South Korean guide, and she simply replied: ‘That’s the way it is here’.”

The Danube’s flooding and currents made rescue efforts extremely difficult, with water temperatures ranging between 10 and 12 degrees Celsius (50 and 54 Fahrenheit).
The boat was a 27-metre (89-foot) double-decker river cruise boat with a 150-horsepower engine and could hold up to 60 people, its owner, Panorama Deck Ltd, told state media.
Boat registry Hajoregiszter.hu showed the ship, originally built in the Soviet Union in 1949, received a Hungarian-made new engine in the 1980s.
A shipping expert told state television it was likely the pleasure boat had sunk very quickly.
Hundreds of boats ply the Danube in and around Budapest each day, from small sightseeing boats to larger river cruises which dock in the city before continuing along the river.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Guardian, Associated Press


Hungary’s Orban stirs up concerns of a Trump surprise for EU leaders

How Chinese EV makers can survive and thrive in Europe

At UN, Wang Yi expresses China’s support for Lebanon after fatal Israeli strikes

On the trail of the mystery woman linked to exploding pagers in Lebanon

Hungary

‘No life jackets’: 7 South Korean tourists dead, 21 missing in Hungary pleasure boat tragedy

epa07611442 A rescue boat searches for victims after a tourist boat crashed with another ship, overturned and sank in the River Danube, in Budapest, Hungary, 29 May 2019, killing at least three of the 34 people onboard, mostly tourists from Eastern Asia. EPA-EFE/Zsolt Szigetvary HUNGARY OUT

An official from South Korea's Embassy in Budapest stands in front of the Viking Cruises Sigyn hotel-boat on the banks of the Danube River in downtown Budapest on May 30, 2019. - Seven South Korean tourists were killed and 19 missing after a pleasure boat capsized on the Danube in the Hungarian capital, the foreign ministry said on May 30, 2019. A total of 33 South Koreans were onboard and seven have been rescued, with a rescue operation underway for the missing 19, it said, adding the boat capsized after a collision on May 29 with a cruise ship, without elaborating further. (Photo by GERGELY BESENYEI / AFP)

The Very Good Tour agency senior official Lee Sang-moo, left, bows to make an apology during a press conference at its headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, May 30, 2019. A sightseeing boat carrying 33 South Korean passengers and two crew members collided with another vessel and sank in the Danube River in downtown Budapest. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

epa07611443 Rescuers and police officers inspect the dark water from a bridge after a tourist boat crashed with another ship, overturned and sank in River Danube, in Budapest, Hungary, 29 May 2019, killing at least three of the 34 people onboard, mostly tourists from Eastern Asia. EPA-EFE/Zsolt Szigetvary HUNGARY OUT

The boat that sank was identified as the ‘Hableany’ (Mermaid), which is described on the sightseeing company’s website as ‘one of the smallest members of the fleet’. File photo: EPA

Missing Hong Kong couple found dead more than a week after fishing vessel collided with oil tanker

The fishing boat collided with an oil tanker more than seven times its length. Photo: Hong Kong Police Force

Thai police say boat at centre of ferry disaster that killed 47 Chinese tourists failed to meet design standards

The wreck of the Phoenix is salvaged from the sea floor. Photo: EPA

Nearly 100 killed in Iraq after ferry carrying Kurdish new year revellers sinks in Tigris river

People and relatives of victims waiting on the bank of the Tigris river where the ferry sank in Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, March 21, 2019. A ferry overloaded with people celebrating the Kurdish new year sank in the Tigris River near the Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, killing dozens of people, mostly women and children, officials said. (AP Photo/Farid Abdulwahed)

Iraqi Army soldiers search for survivors over the site where an overloaded ferry sank in the Tigris river near Mosul in Iraq, March, 21,2019. REUTERS/Stringer NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

epa07454441 A handout picture released by Iraqi Prime Mininster Office shows Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi (C) visiting the people who survived the overloaded ferry that sank in the Tigris river near Mosul, as they receive medical treatment at a local hospital in Mosul, northern Iraq, 21 March 2019. According to reports, more than 93 people drowned after an overloaded ferry sank in the Tigris river in Iraq's city of Mosul. EPA-EFE/IRAQI PRIME MINISTER OFFICE / HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

An Iraqi rescue helicopter searches for survivors in the Tigris river near Mosul on March 21,2019. Photo: Reuters

News

World

Europe

Asia

East Asia

Sightseeing vessel hit by another tourist boat on Danube river night tour
South Korea’s president instructs officials to ‘deploy all available resources’ for rescue


Witness says passengers aboard doomed vessel on the Danube river in Hungary’s capital were not given life jackets.


Tourism

‘No life jackets’: 7 South Korean tourists dead, 21 missing in Hungary pleasure boat tragedy

Sightseeing vessel hit by another tourist boat on Danube river night tour South Korea’s president instructs officials to ‘deploy all available resources’ for rescue

Sightseeing vessel hit by another tourist boat on Danube river night tour

South Korea’s president instructs officials to ‘deploy all available resources’ for rescue