Cruise ship rams tourist boat, dock in Venice canal

Venice, Italy — A towering, out-of-control cruise ship rammed into a dock and a tourist riverboat on a busy Venice canal on Sunday morning, injuring five people, officials said. The collision sparked new calls for placing restrictions on cruise ships in the famed city.

The crash happened about 8:30 a.m. local time on the Giudecca Canal, a major thoroughfare that leads to St. Mark’s Square in the northeastern Italian city.

The MSC Opera cruise ship, apparently unable to stop, blared its horn as it slammed into the much smaller River Countess boat and the dock as dozens of people ran away in panic. In videos of the crash, people were seen rushing to disembark from the moored riverboat over a short gangplank, and at least two people were left caught on the walkway as the vessel was dislodged from the pier.

Elisabetta Pasqualin was watering plants on her terrace when she heard warning sirens.

“There was this huge ship in a diagonal position in the Giudecca Canal, with a tugboat near which seemed like it couldn’t do anything,” she said.

She described the ship “advancing slowly but inevitably toward the dock.” She said “the bow of the ship crashed hard into the bank with its massive weight crushing a big piece of it. Sirens were wailing loudly; it was a very dramatic scene.”

When the cruise ship rammed the riverboat, she said the smaller vessel looked like it was “made of plastic or paper” rather than steel.

Local officials said five women aboard the riverboat were injured. They said one was released immediately from a hospital, while four others were advised to remain under medical care for a few days.

Earlier, medical authorities said four of the women — an American, a New Zealander and two Australians between the ages of 67 and 72 — were injured falling or trying to run away when the cruise ship rammed into the River Countess.

Venice is a tremendously popular site for tourists and cruise ships, especially in the summer tourist season.

The cruise ship’s owner, MSC Cruises, said the vessel was about to dock at a passenger terminal in Venice when it had a mechanical problem. Two tugboats guiding the cruise ship into Venice tried to stop the MSC Opera, but they were unable to prevent it from ramming into the riverboat.

“The two tugboats tried to stop the giant and then a tow cable broke, cut by the collision with the riverboat,” Davide Calderan, president of a tugboat association in Venice, told the Italian news agency ANSA.

Calderan said the cruise ship’s engine was locked when the captain called for help.

Italian media posted an audio clip of the MSC Opera’s pilot telling emergency officials that the ship experienced a loss of controls and “activated all the procedures to avoid what in the end happened, which was an impact.”

Following the collision, calls for banning cruise ships in Venice, long a source of contention in the over-extended tourist city, were renewed.

Opponents say cruise ships are out-of-scale for Venice, cause pollution, endanger the lagoon’s ecosystem and a danger.