Husband of injured Australian relives Venice cruise ship crash horror
The husband of an Australian woman injured when an out-of-control cruise ship smashed into their small riverboat docked in a Venice canal has revealed he is amazed they’re still alive.
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The husband of an Australian woman injured when an out-of-control cruise ship smashed into their small riverboat docked in a Venice canal has recounted the horror moment.
James and Ruth Halliwell from Sydney were travelling through Italy when the MSC Opera suffered an engine and sent tourists packing as it crashed into the wharf on Sunday morning.
Mrs Halliwell was one of five tourists injured in the incident, including another Australian.
He says he is amazed they are still alive.
“The horror of the MSC Opera passing what seemed like only a few feet from our heads while we lay unable to move on the deck, expecting to be crushed any minute, cannot be described,” Mr Halliwell told 7News.com.au.
The couple were on board the River Countess when it was rammed by the 65,500 tonne ship.
Mr Halliwell escaped injury but his wife was not so lucky.
She is expected to remain in hospital for the next five days.
“Due to her injuries it is unknown when she will be fit to fly back home,” Mr Halliwell told the news site.
He said a New Zealand woman also injured in the accident is staying in a bed next to his wife. She suffered critical injuries and is preparing to undergo surgery.
The other injured were reportedly two American women.
Italy’s transport minister on Monday ordered the head of the Venice port to Rome to discuss the accident.
Venice’s mayor called for a ban on cruise ships traversing the heart of the fragile lagoon city.
Venice is one of the world’s top ports of call for cruise ships and one of Italy’s most heavily visited cities. Debate over the behemoth boats has raged for years.
‘PEOPLE WERE RUNNING IN EVERY DIRECTION’
Australian man Robert Lauretti was enjoying breakfast with friends on the balcony of the MSC Opera when the towering ship hit the dock and ferry as it tried to berth on the Giudecca Canal.
Mr Lauretti told News Corp Australia he knew something was wrong when the ship was pointed at the pier just seconds before.
“I knew at about 90 seconds out from impact as the ship seemed to be pointed at the pier,” Mr Lauretti said.
“You could see that there was no way the ship was going to turn in time,” he added.
The Carrara resident, who was travelling with his wife Rita and two friends, said he was very worried about the people on the small river cruiser which the ship had smashed into.
“We were worried about the river cruiser docked as we could see lots of people still on board rushing to get off,” he said.
Mr Lauretti said he heard people screaming and the scraping of metal as the boat collided with the dock.
“I could see lots of people screaming and running in every direction to get off.
#Venezia #VIDEO la nave da crociera #Opera di @MSC_Crociere fuori controllo ha speronato stamattina il battello fluviale #Michelangelo e la banchina.
— Beppe Caccia (@beppecaccia) June 2, 2019
Qualcuno ci spiegherà perché le navi che salvano vite sono sotto sequestro, mentre queste #grandinavi sono libere di far danni. pic.twitter.com/mSyhCMvvZc
“At that point we could hear the crunching of pier and scrapping of metal as the boat slowly collided into the dock,” he said.
Video footage captured the moment when people on the dock realised the hulking vessel was not going to stop and began to run.
VIDEO: Cruise ship loses control and slams into a Venice wharf and tourist boat pic.twitter.com/mMzqih4lZZ
— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 2, 2019
The Gold Coast resident holidaying in Italy said people were panicked and running in all directions.
“I was watching them running around in circles. Who was jumping left, who was jumping right trying to get off the river cruiser,” Mr Lauretti previously told the ABC.
Mr Lauretti said he even saw one woman ‘flip’ from the river cruiser as she was trying to run down some stairs.
“I actually saw her legs go down so she was completely upside down.
“You can just make it out in that video that she was running into those stairs. Quite freaky,” he said.
Simon Skinner, an eyewitness from the UK, told ABC radio: “It was just a matter of shock and we were sort of trembling. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Just to see this thing out of control was unbelievable.”
— Simon Skinner (@firstlight40) June 2, 2019
“When we saw the ship bearing down on us, everyone began shouting and running,” a sailor who was on the River Countess tourist boat was quoted as saying by Italian media.
“I didn’t know what to do. I got away quickly, jumping to get on shore,” said the man, who was not named.
The incident came just days after a river cruise ship collided with a sightseeing vessel in Budapest, killing seven people and leaving 21 missing.
The MSC Opera can carry more than 2500 passengers and boasts a theatre, ballroom and water park for children.
SHIP UNABLE TO STOP
“The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Davide Calderan, head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italian media.
“The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing,” he said.
The two tug boats that had been guiding the ship into the Giudecca tried to slow it, but one of the chains linking them to the giant snapped under the pressure, he added.
Italian media have posted an audio clip of the MSC Opera’s pilot telling emergency officials that the cruise ship experienced a loss of controls and “activated all the procedures to avoid” collision with the riverboat and dock in Venice.
“I could see the prow coming closer, and I thought it would hit my house. The noise was defeaning,” one Venetian resident was quoted as saying by Italian media.
The accident reignited a heated row in Venice over the damage caused to the city and its fragile ecosystem by cruise ships that sail exceptionally close to the shore.
While gondoliers in striped T-shirts and woven straw hats row tourists around the narrow canals, the smoking chimneys of mammoth ships loom into sight behind the city’s picturesque bell towers and bridges.
Critics say the waves the ships create are eroding the foundations of the lagoon city, which regularly floods, leaving iconic sites such as Saint Mark’s Square underwater.
“What happened in the port of Venice is confirmation of what we have been saying for some time,” Italy’s environment minister Sergio Costa wrote on Twitter.
“Cruise ships must not sail down the Giudecca. We have been working on moving them for months now … and are nearing a solution,” he said.
‘RISK OF CARNAGE’
WWF Italy described the incident as “an important alarm bell to which it would be madness not to listen”.
Nicola Fratoianni, an MP with the Italian Left party, noted Italy’s welcoming attitude to cruise ships contrasted sharply with its hostile approach to charity rescue vessels that help migrants who run into difficulty in the Mediterranean.
“It is truly curious that a country that tries to stop ships that have saved people at sea from entering its ports allows giant steel monsters to risk carnage in Venice,” he said.
MSC Cruises, founded in Italy in 1960, is a global line registered in Switzerland and based in Geneva.
One of its cruise ships, the MSC Preziosa, collided with a passenger embarkation ramp as it entered port in Venice in 2014, according to the local La Nuova daily.
The Opera, built 15 years ago, suffered a power failure in 2011 in the Baltic, forcing some 2000 people to be disembarked in Stockholm rather than continuing their Southampton to Saint Petersburg voyage.
Originally published as Husband of injured Australian relives Venice cruise ship crash horror
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