RUSSIA: Country holds a national day of mourning for victims of the Volga river boat accident

Record ID: 757057

  • Title: RUSSIA: Country holds a national day of mourning for victims of the Volga river boat accident
  • Date: 13th July 2011
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (JULY 12, 2011) (REUTERS) RED SQUARE WITH KREMLIN RUSSIAN FLAG AT HALF MAST OVER KREMLIN VARIOUS OF RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT BUILDING FLAGS AT HALF MAST CARS DRIVING ON ROAD WITH KREMLIN IN BACKGROUND RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND MOSCOW FLAGS WITH OTHERS ON BUILDING PEOPLE WALK BY NEWSPAPER STANDS
  • Embargoed: 28th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Accidents,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVA346AU4NW72IVB2MYCJ9IA4O1E
  • Story Text: Russia held a national day of morning on Tuesday (July 12) for the victims of the Volga river boat accident that killed up to 129 people, amid concerns about the negligence, corner-cutting and corruption that plagues Russia.
    The Bulgaria, an overcrowded riverboat on a weekend Volga cruise, sank 3 km (1.85 miles) from shore on Sunday (July 10) after listing onto its right side in a thunderstorm. Authorities said 79 of the 208 people on board were rescued.
    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared Tuesday a national day of mourning. Flags flew at half-mast nationwide and entertainment programmes and advertising were restricted on television.
    Prayers were said for the victims of the accident in the Kazansky - Mother of God Cathedral on Moscow's Red Square on Tuesday.
    Emergency officials said the boat was meant for up to 140 people but was carrying 208, including 25 unregistered passengers.
    Most survivors were picked up by a passing riverboat after two commercial vessels passed without aiding them.
    Prosecutors said the boat lacked a licence to carry passengers and had a problem with its left engine when it set off for Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan region, after taking passengers to a town downriver on Saturday.
    The official death toll rose to 72.
    Public reaction to the tragedy has been strong and many have felt angry and shocked.
    "I think that now is a time when money decides everything and people are fixated on this and human life is not valued. Even watching is so horrible when men are crying and generally, I cannot just watch the (news) programme," said a Moscow resident, Yelena.
    "Despite all the insurance, the owners of the companies themselves need to think about ...not think about money but about people first of all, so that is it, in principle," said Pavel from Moscow.
    According to a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman, divers working their way through the wreck saw bodies in the recreation area where survivors had said some 30 children gathered shortly before the boat sank. The death toll is estimated to include around 60 children.
    In Tartarstan public reaction has been emotional.
    "This tragedy is not just for particular people - for relatives, but for all of Tatarstan, for Russia. I can't even be calm about such tragedies. It is endless, will these things ever end - I do not know. There were children and their parents on board and everyone wanted to spend time joyously and here is such sorrow," said Zeinip.
    "If I imagine what was in the children's room - that is just impossible to imagine. Horrible, its all horrible," said Vladimir.
    The country's deadliest river disaster since 1983 was at once horrifying and unsurprising for many Russians, inured to deadly accidents from air crashes and nursing-home fires to coal mine blasts.
    "I think that it's all negligence of those who are managing this transport, and of those from the (shipping) company .You know in our country, it is generally disorder almost in all areas," said Kazan resident Ivan.
    Many disasters are blamed on the negligence and corruption that pervade Russia despite tough talk from Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who vowed early in his 2000-2008 presidency to bring order with a "dictatorship of law."
    Medvedev said on Tuesday that a deadly riverboat accident revealed transport safety breaches that cannot be tolerated and said violators must be harshly punished. The Russian president told leading Russian lawmakers that legislation would have to be toughened up after an overcrowded tourist boat built in 1955 sank in the Volga river on Sunday, killing at least 73 people and leaving dozens more feared dead.
    But it may be difficult for Russia's leaders to shift the blame away from the state before parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll next March.
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