News A cruise ship sinks in the Volga, over 100 people are missing

[SiberianTiger]

Not everything is clear with that, there's information that captain of the Arabella, the passenger ship that stopped first by the place and began rescuing the survivors, openly denied help offers from couple of passing by ships, believing that his vessel was more suited for the task. I am not sure what a naval legislation have to say about this, and hope that jury sorts the matter out.

Probably reporters blow up drama over the necessary level, as usual.

 

[Artlav]

Considering that the other two vessels were a towboat with barges and a freighter, that sounds quite plausible.

 

[Adelanthal]

Another consideration, Sky Captain, is not so much the mass as the physical area needed to pass. An evacuation system sufficient for 125 people may be jammed to immobility by 200 people, simply due to people getting into one another's way.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Watch the Bulgaria's disaster reconstruction at flash infographics from RIA Novosti:
http://en.rian.ru/infographics/20110714/165190650.html

Latest news, investigators of Court of Kazan' who are working on the case, apprehended several people who can be at blame for the tragedy, including Svetlana Inyakina, managing director of company "Argoretchtour" that leased the ship for organizing tourist trips, Yakov Ivashov, the senior expert of the Kama branch of Russian river Registry who approved the Bulgaria as worthy for sailing, and captains of two cargo ships that passed by the catastrophe site without providing help to the drowning people.

Upd: the ship will be salvaged from the river's bottom in nearest days. The operation will involve 2 floating cranes, 20 rivercrafts and 72 people, including 23 divers. 113 bodies of the catastrophe's victims were recovered by divers, while 16 people are still missing, but the search operation will continue even after the sunken ship is salvaged.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The salvaging is now over.

The sunken boat Bulgaria, earlier raised from the bed of Volga River, has been docked on Tuesday, according to a representative of the regional Emergencies Ministry. The Investigative Committee has begun to examine the boat. The pleasure cruiser sank on July 10 near the Russian city of Kazan, claiming the lives of 122 people, including 28 children. Seventy-nine people were rescued.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vyyQG2QSxos

Few close-up photos of the salvaged Bulgaria, taken by passengers of boats which passed by along the river:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mobile/article/441003.html

New Details Surface on Raised Boat
25 July 2011
By Andrew McChesney

The captain of the Bulgaria riverboat, whose sinking killed at least 120 people, tried desperately to steer toward shallow waters in a bid to save lives as the vessel went down, a senior emergency official said Sunday.

The riverboat was raised from the Volga riverbed Friday and towed to shallow waters, where emergency workers on Sunday were pumping out water for an investigation into why it sank.

Six more bodies were found inside the twin-deck ship Sunday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 120 and leaving two people unaccounted for, Interfax said.

The Investigative Committee on Friday revised the count of passengers and crew downward to 201, from an initial 208. Seventy-nine people were rescued from the ship, which listed to one side and sank in three minutes during a storm on July 10.

An initial inspection of the 79-meter boat provided no clue to why it sank, said senior Emergency Situations Ministry official Igor Panshin. But he said the steering wheel was pulled hard right and engine set to full speed in an indication that the captain had tried to reach shallow waters.

“The ship had about 40 meters left until shallow waters,” he said in remarks carried by Interfax. “If the captain had managed to run the Bulgaria aground, there would have been far fewer victims, for sure.”

Television footage showed that a wall clock inside the captain's cabin stopped at 12:30 p.m.

The Bulgaria was raised from a depth of 22 meters Friday, and it arrived in shallow waters near the Tatarstan village of Kuibyshev late Saturday.

The 56-year-old Bulgaria had suffered engine trouble when it embarked on its last voyage with more passengers than it was supposed to carry.

On Friday, two people were charged in connection with the sinking: Svetlana Inyakina, head of the company that rented the Bulgaria, and Yakov Ivashov, a federal inspector who checked the Bulgaria before its departure and certified it fit to sail, RIA-Novosti reported, citing the Investigative Committee.

“At the request of investigators, the court ruled that the suspects be taken into custody,” committee spokesman Vladimir Markin was quoted as saying.

The two are charged with providing unsafe services causing multiple deaths and face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Unfortunately, the Captain died when his ship sank.