Boat accident
July 31, 2011
Three weeks following Russia's worst post-Soviet shipping accident, in which 122 people were killed when a boat sank in the Volga River, another accident claimed the lives of at least seven people after a pleasure boat collided with a barge and sunk in the Moskva River.
Russia's state ITAR-TASS news agency, citing the emergency ministry, reported that seven bodies had been recovered, while seven people had been rescued and two remained missing.
"According to the provisional information, there were 16 people on board. The fate of two is still unknown," deputy emergency minister Alexander Chupriyan said.
The motorboat collided with the barge close to Moscow's Luzhniki sports stadium, upstream from the Kremlin, the emergency ministry added.
Witnesses said the motorboat was hosting a party and had circled the barge several times before losing control of the steering.
"There was a party going on the boat, they were celebrating something. We saw the boat sail around the barge several times," a witness told the Life News website.
Volga disaster
On July 10, a massive pleasure boat sank on the Volga in the central Russian republic of Tatarstan.
The 56-year-old vessel craft was overcrowded and operating without a proper license, officials said. Investigators have arrested the tour operator and a local licensing official and have promised to determine the exact cause of the accident.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed the accident, the deadliest of its kind in decades, on the "greed" of the operator.
Author: Gabriel Borrud (AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Nicole Goebel