The incident occurred at about 13: 58 (Beijing time 17: 58) that afternoon, and the waters involved were near Sukyevo village in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan and the Kansko-Stanovsky region.
The cruise ship named "Bougard de" (formerly known as "Bulgaria") sailed down the river from the historic city of Bougard de on the same day to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan and the city in the middle reaches of the Volga River.
Kazan is located about 830 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Marat Lakmadulin, spokesman of the regional emergency department, said that the double-decker cruise ship, carrying 140 passengers and 33 crew members, sank to the bottom of the river in the middle of the river, with a water depth of 20 meters and a distance of about 3 kilometers from the nearest bank.
Irina Andriano, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation, said in an interview with Russian 24-hour news station in Moscow later that the Bougard actually carried 182 passengers, including 125 passengers, 22 crew members and 35 other staff members.
However, Oleg Zugeyev, another spokesman for the regional emergency department, said in an interview with Reuters that it was impossible to verify the exact number of people aboard the Bougard at the time of the accident.
After the shipwreck accident, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Regional Emergency Situations repeatedly updated the number of missing or dead people notified to the public, without explaining the reasons for the change.
Andriano Eva said that 1 woman had been confirmed to have drowned, 97 were missing and 84 were rescued.
Earlier, Zugeyev said that 167 people were rescued, among which the passing ship "arabella" "rescued 85 people and took two people to the hospital, one of whom died". However, he later corrected this statement, saying that only 84 people were rescued and the remaining 88 were missing.
When the news of the shipwreck first came out, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation said that two bodies of the victims had been found and 96 people were missing, but she later corrected that 6 1 person was missing. RIA Novosti quoted an official from the regional emergency department as saying that 84 people were missing, 78 people were rescued by the arabella and one woman died.
Rescuers used a helicopter and two emergency boats to continue searching for missing persons in the accident area. The Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation decided to send experienced water rescue experts and psychological counselors from Moscow to Kazan that night.
The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation said that a crisis management center had been set up to investigate the cause of the shipwreck.
"Bougard" is an old ship belonging to a local travel company. Russian state television reported that the cruise ship has dozens of cabins and two restaurants.
According to the website of the travel agency, "Bougard" was built in Czechoslovakia at that time in 1955, with a standard passenger capacity of 140 people. It is not clear whether the cruise ship was overloaded at the time of the accident.
Dmitri Voropajev, the head of the Samara River Tourism Company, said that the cabins of cruise ships such as "Bougard De" lacked watertight compartments, that is, they were not divided into disconnected compartments. In the event of an accident such as hitting the rocks, the cabin will be flooded, resulting in "sinking within a few minutes."
Russia is now in the summer tourist season, and many tourists choose to take a boat trip along the Volga River. The Volga River is the longest and largest river in Europe, with a width of 30 kilometers. Most big cities in Russia are located along the Volga River.
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