Wrap-up of today – One survivor of Danube collision still in hospital, others released

Only one of the survivors of the Danube ship collision was still in hospital, receiving treatment for a broken rib, on Thursday afternoon, public television news channel M1 reported. The other six people rescued have been released.

*Daily News Hungary was approached by the South Korean KBS World Radio, and one of our editors gave a quick interview, which you can listen to by clicking on this link (2019-05-30).*

A sightseeing boat carrying 33 South Korean tourists capsized and sank in the River Danube after colliding with a Swiss cruise ship. The bodies of seven victims have been found while a search is under way for the people missing, including the crew of two Hungarians.

The Ukrainain captain, C. Yuriy, of the hotel boat which collided with Hableány has been interrogated and arrested by the police.

According to bbc.com, the 64-year-old Ukrainian national is held as a suspect over reckless misconduct in waterborne traffic leading to mass casualties.

Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler visited survivors of Wednesday’s ship collision in Budapest’s Uzsoki hospital on Thursday morning. Kasler said the seven South Korean nationals had been rushed to hospital and treated in the Uzsoki, Honvád and Szent Imre hospitals soon after the disaster on Wednesday evening.

A special emergency rescue boat was put in use for the first time before its official launch, the national water rescue service said.

The use of the boat was required because of the flooding of the Danube and poor weather, the statement added. Its build and special equipment make it suitable for searching for survivors and it played an important role on Thursday to check whether the body of the ship on the river bed had moved in the meantime, the statement said.

For that matter, Austria sent ten divers of its special Cobra unit to Budapest to help Hungarian divers in the Danube collision rescue, the Austrian interior ministry said.

The rescue experts will participate in searching for South Korean passengers still missing after the collision, the statement added.

“I express my sincere condolences to the families of passengers who fell victim to the disaster,” Interior Minister Eckart Ratz said.

“In the case of such tragic incidents, it is important that we make available operational forces and modern technology to our neighbours,” he added.

Austrian news agency APA said the divers had been sent at the request of Hungary’s disaster management centre.

South Korea had earlier announced that it would send a 13-member rescue team to Budapest.

Source: MTI