Seven South Korean tourists have died and another crowd of 21 people are missing after a boat sank on the Danube river in Hungary's capital, Budapest.
Thirty South Korean
tourists and three tour guides, as well as two Hungarian crew, were on the tour
boat when it collided with another vessel.
The incident occurred
just after 19:00 GMT on Wednesday.
Seven people have been
rescued, and a massive search operation is continuing on a river swollen by
heavy rainfall.
The rain had led to
strong currents on the Danube. Rescue teams say there is little hope of finding
more survivors.
A criminal
investigation has been launched.
The boat that sank
near the parliament building in central Budapest was identified as the
Hableany, or Mermaid.
The Hableany has two
decks and a capacity of 45 people for sightseeing trips.
CCTV
footage has emerged purportedly showing the Hableany and a larger vessel
colliding near the Margit (Margaret) Bridge.
Some
reports suggest that the Hableany was hit from behind.
This
has not been confirmed by the authorities, as they investigate a rare incident
on the Danube where navigation is busy but generally safe.
At a news conference on Thursday, police spokesman Adrian Pal said the boat had sunk "within seven seconds" after the collision.
Rescue
teams have located the wreckage, and are now preparing to lift the wreckage.
Meanwhile,
Imre Horvath, the head of the Hungarian National Shipping Association, said he
believed it was a human error, MTI news agency reported, although he gave no
further details.
South Korea's foreign
ministry confirmed that seven of its citizens had died and 19 were missing.
Hungarian
police officials later said 21 people were unaccounted for, but it was unclear
whether this included any tour guides and crew members
The South Korean
ministry said a team of officials would be sent to Hungary, adding that
counselling would be made available to victims' families.
Lee
Sang-moo, a spokesman for the tour organiser, told reporters in the South
Korean capital, Seoul, that at least one child was among the missing.
Pal
Gyorfi, a spokesman for Hungarian emergency services, said seven survivors had
been taken to hospital with "hypothermia and shock symptoms".
The rescue effort
continued throughout the night and into Thursday, with boats, divers,
spotlights, and radar scanning along the river several kilometres downstream.
Emergency
crews discovered the wreckage of the Mermaid on the riverbed near the Margaret
Bridge.
Rescue teams warned
that, as more time passed, the strong currents would carry people further
downstream, lessening the chances of finding survivors.
Boat
traffic has been halted on the Danube south of Budapest, Reuters news agency
reported.
The BBC's Laura Bicker
in Seoul says Wednesday's sinking is a painful reminder of the Sewol disaster
in 2014.
The
ferry of that name sank off South Korea's Jindo island, killing 304 people,
almost all of them schoolchildren on a trip.
The sinking was blamed
on a combination of illegal redesigns, cargo overloading, the inexperience of
the crew, and lax government regulations.