Tourist boat capsizes during storm in Vietnam; 37 killed, 5 missing
- Share via
HA LONG BAY, Vietnam — A boat carrying tourists capsized during a sudden thunderstorm in Vietnam on Saturday afternoon during a sightseeing excursion, killing 37 people, state media reported. Five others remain missing.
The Wonder Sea boat was carrying 48 passengers and five crew members — all of them Vietnamese — during the tour of Ha Long Bay, a popular destination for visitors, according to the reports.
Rescue workers saved 11 people and recovered the dead near the site of the capsizing, VNExpress newspaper said. Authorities had earlier reported that 12 people had been rescued, but revised the figure.
The boat capsized because of strong winds, the newspaper said.
A 14-year-old boy was among the survivors. He was rescued four hours after being trapped in the overturned hull.
The newspaper said that most of the passengers were tourists from Hanoi, the capital, including about 20 children.
A tropical storm is moving toward the area. A national weather forecast said that Storm Wipha is expected to hit Vietnam’s northern region next week, including Ha Long Bay’s coast.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
UCLA professor and climate scientist, Alex Hall, joins host Kate Cagle to talk about how we can better prepare ourselves for the next mega-fire, including a proposal to create a classification system – and a standardized response – for Santa Ana wind storms, similar to the one we use for hurricanes in the U.S.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Modern LA earned its first smoggy nickname 450 years ago, as the “bay of smokes.” At the La Brea tar pits, we take a short walk through a long history with curator Regan Dunn, who explains how and why the first Angelenos would have set fires that filled the broad bowl of LA and foretold the curse of smog.
