Two Australians were among those injured when a luxury cruise liner collided with a river boat and wharf in Venice on Sunday morning.
The tourists, along with a New Zealander and an American, were hurt while attempting to escape the path of the massive MSC Opera – a 275 metre long ship – after it rammed into local boat The River Countess in Venice’s busy Giudecca Canal, the Associated Press reports.
WATCH the shocking footage of the collision here:
The four were females aged between 67 and 72.
Footage from the San Basilio cruise terminal showed the MSC Opera apparently losing control, before blaring its’ warning horn and scraping along the dockside.
Venetian resident Elisabetta Pasqualin told Canada’s CBC News the ship “advanced slowly but inevitably toward the dock” before crashing hard into the bank in a “very dramatic scene”.
The cruise ships’s owner MSC Cruises said the liner was about to dock at a passenger temrinal when it suffered a mechanical fault severing its connection to the tugboats guiding it to shore.
The crash has ignited fresh calls to ban cruise ships from the historic Giudecca Canal.
“[Sunday’s] accident in the port of Venice proves that cruise ships shouldn’t be allowed to pass down the Giudecca anymore,” Italy’s Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli said.
“After many years of inertia, we are finally close to a solution to protect both the lagoon and tourism.”
