The Louis Majesty, a cruise-liner carrying nearly 2,000 passengers and crew, has been hit by an 8-meter high freak wave off the coast of Spain. The wave’s impact has resulted in the deaths of two of the passengers and the injury of six others. No details other that that one of the dead passengers was Italian and the other German have yet been given.
The accident happened off the Catalonian coast on Wednesday evening as the liner headed for the port of Genoa. Following the incident the ships captain re-routed for Barcelona so that the dead could be evacuated and the injured taken to hospital. One of the passengers, a sixty-two-year-old woman is said to have had both of her legs broken in the incident. The other five passengers are said to have minor injuries. The Spanish maritime rescue service has reported that several windows in the lounge area were smashed. However the vessel is apparently still in a fit enough state to carry on with its scheduled itinerary.
According to a spokesperson from the Barcelona Port Authority the Greek Cypriot owned vessel will carry on its journey to Genoa after the dead and injured have been taken care of. Before being struck by the wave the 41,000 tonne, 200-meter-long cruise-liner had set out from Spain’s south-west port of Cartagena. Those who were on board when the wave hit were the ships Greek captain, 580 crew members and 1350 passengers.