Firefighters have brought under control a blaze at the wreck of the Szőke Tisza, the largest paddle steamer ever built in Hungary, in Szeged on Wednesday afternoon, the Csongrád-Csanád County Disaster Management Directorate said.
Szőke Tisza in fire
Krisztina Molnár said undergrowth caught fire near Kőrös sor, in the Tápéi Bay area of Szeged. The flames then spread to the remains of the Szőke Tisza steamship, which had been placed there.
Sixteen firefighters from Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely were sent to the scene, where they used several jets of water and hand tools to tackle the vegetation and the lower deck of the vessel. The blaze affected around 500 square metres and part of the ship, she said. Firefighters are continuing to cool the hull and monitor the wreck.
At the scene, firefighters from four units were still spraying the wreck with a jet of water from an aerial ladder appliance on Wednesday afternoon, while vegetation over a wider area around the wreck had been completely burnt off, MTI’s reporter observed.
The boat served almost a century
The Szőke Tisza was built in 1917 at the Ganz shipyard in Újpest. The more than 77-metre-long, twin-funnel paddle steamer was originally named IV. Károly. Following the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, it was renamed Sas, and in 1930 became Szent Imre. During the Second World War it was taken to Austria and only returned to Hungary in 1947.
If you missed: Budapest Danube boat carrying 85 passengers nearly sinks in city centre — video
It was renamed Felszabadulás in 1950, then refurbished and converted into a pleasure cruiser in 1957-58. It was withdrawn from service in 1976 and subsequently used as a floating vessel in Budapest. Two years later it was moved to Szeged, where it operated as a restaurant and later as a disco boat in the 1980s. The badly deteriorated vessel was towed to Tápéi Bay in 2000, where it sank in 2012.
The remains of the country’s largest river paddle steamer came into the ownership of the Hajózásért Foundation in December 2017. The foundation was set up specifically to save the Szőke Tisza by Mihály Varga, founder of the KÉSZ Group, and Csaba Portás, a shipping specialist who had been committed to the cause for years. The wreck was raised in 2020.
Many hotel boats stranded on the Danube because of low water levels
