Rogue Wave Hits Cruise Liner
NEW YORK (
) --
Greek union members have been out in the streets of Athens angrily protesting the government's new austerity budget. However, the angriest and most devastating event in the Mediterranean region this week was a rogue wave that hit a cruise ship at sea, killing two passengers, and injuring at least 14 more people.
The freak rogue wave event was 26 feet high and injured at least 14 people on the Mv Louis Majesty, according to the French news service
AFP News
.
The 1,300 passengers on the cruise ship were being sent back to their home countries on Thursday.
Spanish television features images filmed by passengers of the waves crashing through the ship's defenses and panicked passengers scurrying in terror.
The owners of the ship, Cyprus-based Louis Cruise Lin, said a German and Italian passenger had been killed in the disaster. One 64-year-old female passenger remained in serious condition in a Spanish hospital with broken legs, the most serious among the injured passengers that survived the ordeal.
The ship docked in Barcelona late Wednesday to evacuate the dead and injured, start repatriating passengers and carry out repairs,
AFP News
reported.
The fatalities occurred when the rogue wave smashed through windows in a public area at the front of the ship. No investigation is expected as the freak natural disaster does have a history on the high seas, and could not have been prevented.
A one hundred foot wave crashed into a North Sea oil platform in 1995. A 60 foot rogue wave hit a Brittany Ferries ship, the Pont-Aven, in May 2006, according to
AFP News
.
Normal operations for the ship, which flies under a Maltese flag, are expected to resume on March 12.
Experts said that the rogue wave could be explained by a phenomenon of amplification -- when two or more waves overlap.
Cruise stocks, including
Royal Caribbean
(RCL) - Get Report
and
Carnival
(CCL) - Get Report
were both up at the close on Thursday by modest gains, evidently unaffected by the news.
-- Reported by Eric Rosenbaum in New York.
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