{"id":112261,"date":"2011-07-11T11:06:20","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T06:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=112261"},"modified":"2011-07-11T11:06:20","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T06:06:20","slug":"over-100-missing-after-boat-sinks-in-russias-volga-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/07\/11\/over-100-missing-after-boat-sinks-in-russias-volga-river.html","title":{"rendered":"Over 100 Missing after Boat Sinks in Russia’s Volga River"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 100 people are still missing with at least one person confirmed dead after a pleasure boat sank in Russia’s Volga River during a storm on Sunday, according to Russian officials, reports Deutsche Welle<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ageing vessel “Bulgaria,” which was manufactured in Czechoslovakia more than a half-century ago, sank within minutes in the 20-meter-deep waters just three kilometers away from the nearest shore, Echo Moskvy radio reported.<\/p>\n

“The captain knew that this was no weather for a cruise,” Mikhail Turkov, spokesman for the local civil defense agency, told the Russian news agency Interfax.<\/p>\n

The boat was returning to Kazan, the capital of the semi-autonomous republic of Tartarstan, after taking passengers down river on Saturday, according to Russian news agencies.<\/p>\n

Although 80 people had been rescued earlier in the day by a passing vessel, Russian officials had little hope that those still missing would be found alive.<\/p>\n

“The chances of finding more survivors are very small,” Emergency Situations Ministry spokesperson Irina Andrianova said.<\/p>\n

The ministry’s regional branch reported that 188 people had been on board the vessel, including 150 passengers.<\/p>\n

Survivors reported that many children were on the boat when it sank.<\/p>\n

“Practically no children made it out,” one woman told the state-run Rossiya-24 television. “There were very many children on the boat – very many.”<\/p>\n

The news agency Interfax quoted one male survivor as saying that 30 children had gathered\u00a0in a playroom near the bow\u00a0minutes before the boat sank.<\/p>\n

“I’m afraid\u00a0many of them dead,” the man said.<\/p>\n

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the sinking, according to a statement released by the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

The investigation is likely to focus on the age and condition of the boat. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass cited the company that owned the Bulgaria as saying the vessel had passed inspections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ageing vessel “Bulgaria,” which was manufactured in Czechoslovakia more than a half-century ago, sank within minutes in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[29439,10254,29438,17821],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}