Volga boat tragedy: rescuers discover children’s bodies

Divers searching sunken Russian tourist boat find up to 50 bodies in a recreation room – most of them children Divers searching a tourist boat that sank in Russia’s Volga river discovered the bodies of 50 people, most of them children, in a recreation room on Tuesday, an emergencies ministry official said. The news will deepen anguish over a disaster that tore families apart, killing up to 129 people and underscoring concerns about the negligence, corner-cutting and corruption that troubles Russia. The official death toll rose to 72. The Bulgaria, an overcrowded riverboat on a weekend Volga cruise, sank 3km (1.85 miles) from shore on Sunday after listing on to its right side in a thunderstorm. Authorities said 79 of the 208 people on board were rescued. Emergencies ministry spokeswoman Yelena Smirnykh said divers working their way through the wreck saw the bodies when they reached the recreation area, where survivors had said about 30 children had gathered shortly before the boat sank. “By their visual estimates, the bodies of about 50 people are there. Most of them are children,” Smirnykh said. She said psychologists who were sent to counsel grieving relatives of the dead had also been helping some of the divers, who by Tuesday had recovered 71 bodies from the riverboat that one survivor said had fast become a “metal coffin”. One woman was found on Sunday, making the official death toll 72, and officials said there was almost no chance of finding anyone else alive. Emergency officials said the boat was meant for up to 140 people but was carrying 208, including 25 unregistered passengers. Most survivors were picked up by a passing riverboat after two commercial vessels passed without aiding them. Prosecutors said the boat lacked a licence to carry passengers and had a problem with its left engine when it set out for Kazan, capital of the Tatarstan region, after taking passengers to a town downriver on Saturday. Russia observed familiar grieving rituals on Tuesday, which was declared a day of mourning by the president, Dmitry Medvedev. Flags flew at half-staff nationwide and entertainment programmes and advertising were restricted on television. Russia Europe guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.