About a week after the deadly shipwreck on the Danube in Budapest, new allegations against the captain of the participating river cruise ship have become known. The 64-year-old Ukrainian is already being investigated for an incident in the Netherlands, as the Budapest Prosecutor’s Office confirmed yesterday.
Hungarian media had reported that the man had rammed an oil tanker on April 1 near the Dutch city of Terneuzen with another ship of the Viking shipping company. The public prosecutor’s office confirmed, based on information from the European judicial authority Eurojust, that in the Netherlands the man was being investigated. But she did not comment on the incident itself.
Strong flow prevents salvage
The captain had been arrested after the disaster on the Danube. In Hungary, it is being investigated against him for a risk to the shipping traffic with fatal consequences. Two days after the accident, his lawyers had said that the 64-year-old was „devastated“ by the accident, but he made no mistake.
The river cruise ship „Viking Sigyn“ collided with a smaller excursion boat on Wednesday in a popular section of the Danube in Budapest’s city center last week. The small boat with 33 South Korean passengers and two crew members on board sank within seconds. Only seven inmates were able to save themselves. 17 dead have been recovered so far, the strong current prevented so far a penetration into the interior of the ship.
