Police and divers are investigating the boat accident from last week in Budapest
A horrible boat accident last week in Budapest
I wrote a Dutch post about it the day after, a tourist boat hit a cruise ship on the Danube river near the Parliament building. As the weather conditions were horrible at the time, the boat didn't stand a chance, and almost instantly collapsed. They say the boat sank in 7 seconds, and that only 7 people were rescued, 7 bodies were found and 21 people were missing. I read that South-Korea flew in rescue workers to help with the search for the missing people, and I also saw they asked Hungary to work together with countries nearby in case they didn't have enough manpower for the search.
Saturday we went to the Margaret Island, from the bridge you can see the Parliament building
Like I expected (and wrote about), arriving on the bridge to hop on to the island was a totally different feeling this time. Normally this is the place that makes me love Budapest, and always gives me the "wow, we live here feeling" when we have that awesome view from the moment we leave the tram. This time I only thought about the victims of this accident, and right after the tram entered the bridge, we could see the rescue boat that probably is placed there to recover the remaining parts of the boat. You can't stand there with a happy feeling, knowing what took place just days ago. Not even a week has passed since this has happened, and the feeling is still fresh.
The island has become a coordination point for all the people involved in the investigation
As you can read here, the captain of the boat is arrested by the Hungarian police. I don't want to state my opinion on the arrest of the captain, as I wasn't there myself. But I still hope that it will be mandatory to use life jackets from now on, because this may never happen again. There's a video online, released by the Hungarian police, including footage of the actual crash, which you can see in the video below:
Arriving at the island, it became clear that this was a huge operation where different countries are bundling their powers where they can. I've seen military vehicles from Hungary on the island, but also South-Korean cars and people, Czech vehicles (afterwards I read that the search has continued in Czechia as well because of the current in the Danube river.
I didn't take a picture of the military tents and vehicles, as I don't know if I'm allowed to do so. But take it from me when I say that it's a big operation that they are coordinating from the island. It makes sense that they are doing that from there, as the island has several docks from where they can hop on and of boats. And the parliament building is very nearby. I can only have respect for all the workers involved in this investigation, and I hope that they will find all the answers they are looking for. For the visitors on the island, it was notable that most of them were aware of what happened only days ago, many were sitting on the riverside looking over the water. Where the island normally stands for joy and happiness, today it's a place of grieve as well. I hope that they will at least find the missing people, so the loved ones can get closure over time, and focus on grieving instead of not knowing where their loved ones are.
~Anouk