Strong Currents On Danube Halt Search Operations For Missing Romanian Sailors

15 nov. 2008, 15:58,

Antonel Tanase, secretary of state within the Ministry of Transport, said search operations in the area where the barge sank were halted due to strong currents, adding they would be resumed Sunday morning at the latest.

Calarasi county deputy prefect, Cornel Coman, said three divers had been looking for the two sailors, stressing a lot more divers would be called to step in the search process.

Coman cared to mention that divers would use better equipment and a more stable platform to track down the missing sailors, which, he said, could be either alive, if not faced with hypothermia, or trapped into the ship’s tight compartments.

Traffic on the Danube was resumed Saturday for shallow draft ships on a detour canal, according to Florin Mihalache, manager of Navigable Ways within the Lower Danube River Administration in Galati, eastern Romania.

Prosecutors already heard several crew members on the tugboat, as well as the barge owner.

Mihalache said Friday that the tugboat, called Linz 2, sailing under the Austrian flag, was part of a convoy of eight barges loaded with dirt. Around km 356 on the Danube, near

Calarasi, the tugboat collided with the barge "Andreea" owned by the company Comision Trade Braila.

Authorities said the reasons for the accident are yet unknown, stressing an investigation would establish the guilty parties.

"There are no signaling problems on that segment, and the buoys are in order. In my opinion this is human error, the two didn’t manage to synchronize their moves on the navigable canal," Mihalache said Friday.

According to navigation regulations, the vessel coming from upstream needs to yield to the one coming from downstream.

Strong Currents On Danube Halt Search Operations For Missing Romanian Sailors

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