A luxury cruise ship was diverted to the site of a deadly collision between two cargo ships to assist in the “search and rescue” mission, according to stunned passengers enjoying their vacation on the North Sea.
Two cargo vessels — the UK-flagged Verity and the Bahamas-flagged Polesie — collided at around 5 a.m. local time on Tuesday approximately 13 miles southwest of the German island of Helgoland, according to German maritime authorities.
One body has been recovered, two people have been rescued, and four are missing after the Verity, which was reportedly carrying steel from Germany to the UK port of Immingham, sank in the North Sea, the maritime emergency authority said on Tuesday.
Passengers aboard the P&O cruise ship Iona, which set sail four days ago from the British port of Southampton, posted images on social media from the site of the collision.
“At 7am we had a brief explanation, nobody knew two ships had collided, but just that we were assisting in a search and rescue and we’ve had nothing since,” passenger Nica Quigley told the UK-based news outlet Daily Echo on Tuesday.
One passenger posted images of the cruise ship beaming its search lights into the night-covered waters.
The X user wrote that the “mood on Iona is somber” and there was “concern for the well-being of those not yet found.”
“The crew have been brilliant,” the X user wrote. “Very respectful of how passengers are feeling. Credit to them.”
Quigley said that some passengers were anxious as to whether they would arrive in Rotterdam as scheduled on Wednesday.
“There is a lot of the chatter on board that people just want to get going,” she told Daily Echo.
“We are expected in Rotterdam at 4:45am, so there is a lot of anxiety surrounding this.”
The cruise ship did pull into port early Wednesday.
German rescue officials said that they were “doing everything humanly possible to rescue more people alive.”
There were seven crew members aboard the Verity, according to the German Central Command for Maritime Emergencies.
The Polesie was sailing from Hamburg to La Coruna in Spain. The vessel had 22 people on board, none of whom were injured, the central command said.
At the time of the collision, the temperature of the water was 54 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Michael Ippich of the German Maritime Search and Rescue Service.
In that temperature, humans can survive for around 20 hours.
Robby Renner, who heads the emergency command overseeing the rescue operation, said that divers would be sent down to the wreckage of the Verity to see whether survivors were still inside.
“The conditions on the spot are extremely difficult,” Renner told British media outlets.
“Because of the weather and visibility underwater, it’s incredibly difficult to conduct such an operation.”