While people were still looking for survivors of the Wednesday night boat crash in Budapest, yesterday morning another two boats collided in Europe. In Venice, a 66.000-tonne MSC cruise ship rammed into a local tourist boat that was moored. Although only 5 were slightly injured, the crash caused more noise in Italy than the fatal crash in Budapest that killed 28 tourists. Because what did a cruise ship like the "Opera" in the Venetian lagoon in the first place?
Yesterday morning, 8.30 am. An MSC cruise ship that left in the Southern Italian city of Bari the day before, enters the Giudecca canal to park itself in the port of Venice. As the almost 2000 passengers are waiting to get off and explore the historical city, something goes wrong: suddenly the ship seems to be uncontrollable and heads for the San Basilio dock that's located along the canal, where a small Michelangelo cruise ship is docked. Without the possibility to break, the MSC cruise ship ends up in between the dock and the Michelangelo boat: All the captain could do was honking the horn in order to warn the passengers on the dock, that started running for their lives.
How it happened
A technical issue lied at the basis of the incident. As it's a small canal, the big ships need to be guided by tugboats. Davide Calderan, the head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italian media the problem was in the engine.
"The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Mr Calderan said, noting the pilot was able to steer the ship to the right-hand side and stop further damage. "The engine was blocked but with its thrust on because the speed was increasing." The two accompanying tug boats tried to slow down the ship, but one of the cables snapped under the pressure, resulting in the crash.
"The engine was blocked but with its thrust on because the speed was increasing. Nothing too bad in most situations, but not during the maneuver through the Giudecca canal"
It turns out not to be so unusual. “Power failure or power loss of large cruise ships are not uncommon”, Jim Walker says. Mr Walker Miami-based maritime lawyer and cruise safety advocate. "However, in most cases, the power loss does not occur at critical moments. In this case, the ship lost power at a critical time as the MSC Opera was approaching port."
An accident waiting to happen
Immediately after the accident, protesters showed up in Central Venice. They have been protesting for years against the mass tourism and in particular the cruise ships. The small Venetian historic center as well as some islands it includes counts only 62.000 habitants, while over 25 to 30 million foreigners visit the city. That's 82.191 foreigners a day, leaving behind the many Italian tourists. The city, that has mostly been build in the 12th century, can't hold the tourists anymore: The squares and alleys are getting so overcrowded that Venice recently introduced an entrance fee up to €10. And a big reason for that mass tourism escalation is the increase of giant cruise ships that dock in its medieval port.
"Not only are those ships an environmental disaster, its passengers come, stay for a few hours and go back to their ship. Economically they are very painful: while they hardly spend anything in Venice, they leave behind an enormous mess and overcrowd the public transport system, the squares, the alleys and the museums.", protesters complain.
They find it unbelievable that those cruise ships are even allowed to go through the canal. "Everyone who has already been in Venice knows how tiny this canal is. It is already overcrowded by the local boats. An accident like this was just waiting to happen".
Some love 'em, others hate 'em
While the local residents feel threatened by these giant ships in their fragile Unesco heritage, local governments heavily support the cruise industry. Not only because of the lobbyists that are strong in this sector, also because it brings lots of jobs to the region [mostly for people living in mainland Venice (Mestre)]. The Costa Concordia disaster in 2012, where a giant cruise ship sunk on the shores of the Isle of Giglio killing 32 people, spurred the Italian government to introduce a law that banned cruise ships over 96,000 tons from sailing the Guidecca Canal. In addition they limited the number of vessels over 40,000 allowed to navigate that channel to five a day. The law came to effect in 2014, but was thrown out just two months later by a regional court of appeal.
After all, it's the immense cruise sector that profits. The trillion dollar business booms as more and more people want to have breakfast on their luxury balcony, strolling by the San Marco Square. And that business is heavily protected by the Italian government as they represent a big share in its economy. However, some politicians want to grant the residents' request and try to completely ban the cruise ships from the canal. Matteo Salvini, of the far-right League, blamed the Five Star Movement (M5S) for failing to support a project to divert cruise liners from the busy Giudecca canal. Danilo Toninelli, M5S’s transport minister, reacted by saying that the alternative route was soon to be found (since years).
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