Cargo Ship Collides with River Cruise Ship on Danube

In Bavaria, Germany on Friday night, a cargo ship broke free from its anchor and plummeted into a river ship cruising past German wineries on the Danube River.

The cruise vessel, the Avalon Tranquility, had been struck by a fully loaded freighter while carrying 157 passengers and 41 crew members and sent the ship into a stand of rocks, ripping a hole in the hull.  Immediately after the passenger cruise ship hit the rocks, the captain maneuvered the ship to shore. Another river ship witnessed the collision with the cargo ship and came to aid the distressed Tranquility, where all passengers and crew were brought aboard and taken to a nearby city, leaving the ship abandoned on the Danube just north of Passau, Germany.

A statement from the ship’s operator of Avalon Waterways reported that the rocks inflicted a two-foot hole into the hull and flooded the engine room.  According to a local German paper, divers made emergency repairs to the Tranquility and had the ship moved to safety on Sunday after closing the Danube’s traffic shipping over the weekend.

No one was injured in the incident.