|
By Arthur Conrad
At least twelve people died Thursday when their tour boat sank in Halong Bay, one of top tourist destinations in Vietnam, officials said. Most of the dead are foreigners. The boat sank when the tourists were sleeping. Talking to reporters, Vu Van Thin, a local government official in Quang Ninh province, said that the 12 dead included 10 foreigners and two Vietnamese. The local immigration police said that the foreign victims were believed to comprise two Americans, two Russians, two Swedes, and one each from Britain, Japan, France and Switzerland.
Later, Swedish authorities confirmed that two of the dead were Swedish its citizens. They were both women in their early 20s. France's embassy in Hanoi confirmed that French people were also on board the boat, but nothing was known about their fate. Thin added that the two Vietnamese victims included a tourist and an interpreter for the overseas visitors. He noted that nine tourists and six crew managed to survive the tragedy. Many tour boats in Halong Bay have dining facilities and cabins which allow the tourists to spend the night on the waters.
Thin said that the boat capsized after breaking but it did not happen due to bad weather. Halong Bay is located in the Gulf of Tonkin about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the capital Hanoi. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994. This is not the first tragedy to happen in the region. Similar incident had happened in September 2009, killing three foreign tourists - two from Britain and one from France.
|
