(19 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Komarom, Hungary – 19 May 2024
1. Damaged hull of "Heidelberg" cruise boat
2. Wide of vessel
3. Police on the river bank
4. Various of vessel
5. Passengers disembarking the boat
6. Passengers
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Billcao (only name given), passenger of the cruise boat:
"Nothing, nothing happened. No bang, no ping, everything (was) really (calm), no any special thing”
8. Damaged hull of the vessel
9. Police leaving the boat
10. Passengers on the river bank
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Billcao (only name given), passenger of the cruise boat:
"No, no, open something, nothing. Everything (was) very, very (gestures).”
12. Police car
13. Various of passengers leaving the river bank
14. Vessel
15. Stern of the vessel with Swiss flag
16. Cruise boat
17. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Marian Koles, bystander:
”It touched me terribly deeply. Precisely because I live not far from Budapest and I also like to go on a cruise on the Danube every year."
18. Police leaving
19. Cruise boat
20. Various of sailors covering the name of the boat
STORYLINE:
Passengers onboard a cruise ship in Hungary shared their bewilderment on Sunday after the ship was moored following a collision where police say two people have died and five are missing on the Danube River.
"Nothing, nothing happened," one passenger told the Associated Press.
Hungarian police received a report late Saturday night that a man had been found with a head injury on the shore of the Danube near the town of Veroce, around 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of the capital, Budapest. The bodies of a man and a woman were later discovered nearby.
Hours after police began their search, they discovered a damaged boat in the water, which they towed to shore. They are still searching for five adults — three men and two women — who they believe were on the boat.
Police said they determined that a river cruise boat had been in the area at the time of the accident. They stopped a cruise boat with a damaged hull near the town of Komarom, more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) further upriver.
One local told the AP of how she was "deeply" touched by the incident as she lives near Budapest and often goes on cruise holidays.
Hungarian public television station M1 reported that the cruise boat, Heidelberg, is a 109-meter (357-foot) Swiss craft that can accommodate 110 people.
No passengers on that boat sustained injuries, M1 said.
The Danube at Veroce is roughly 1,500 feet (460 meters) wide and is in the center of an area called the Danube Bend where the river makes a sweeping, nearly 90-degree turn to the south.
The area is a popular recreational and boating destination and is on a route often used by cruise boats between Budapest and the Austrian capital, Vienna, some 140 miles (230 kilometers) upriver.
Police on Sunday said they have initiated criminal proceedings against an unknown perpetrator on suspicion of endangering water transport and causing the death of several people.
A spokesperson for the Directorate General for Disaster Management told Hungarian news agency MTI that a group of nearly 90 people from several regional disaster management agencies were conducting the search for the missing from the land, water and sky.
Twelve boats and three drones are involved in the search, and two rescue divers are also involved, Imre Doka said.
AP video shot by Bela Szandelszky
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