European tourists evacuated from ship stranded on the Danube near Vidin

Border police successfully evacuated 186 passengers from a stranded tourist ship on the Danube, BTA reported. The “Viking Ullur”, sailing under the Swiss flag ran aground on July 28 opposite the village of Gomotartsi, about 25 km away from Vidin. The ship was left without food and water because it had to load provisions in Vidin. The travel agent arranged for another vessel to go to the spot at kilometer 817, but it failed to get close.

Ivelin Zanev, director of Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River, told the Bulgarian National Radio that the vessel's draft was 1.70 m in a waterway about 1.90 m deep, and it was probably a human error that led to the stranding. The passengers from the ship were taken to a Romanian airport. The Danube level in the Bulgarian and Romanian sections, as well as along the entire river, is critically low in places, Zanev added.

Editor: Ivo Ivanov