TWO ships collided on the Danube river canal near Šamorín in the early morning hours of April 13. A pleasure boat carrying 100 passengers from Passau, Germany to Esztergom in Hungary collided with a cargo ship transporting maize. The cargo ship was severely damaged but rescue workers managed to seal cracks to prevent the ship from totally sinking and later managed to remove its fuel and load the maize onto another boat.
All passengers and crews from both boats were unharmed. The Slovak Rescue Service sent boat units from its stations in Šamorín and Dunajská Streda, the Sme daily reported. The Central Rescue Service in Gabčíkovo, the site of a major dam on the Danube, also assisted.
“The ships crashed, according to the latest information, at about 1:40 in the morning. The sinking boat was out of the usual channel route,” Ivan Peťko, spokesman of the Regional Fire Brigade, told the TASR newswire.
Slovak Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic visited the site and said he was shocked to learn that rescue units learned about the accident at only around 8:00 in the morning even though the incident took place much earlier.
