Tourist vessels caught in storm, 15 children dead – no life vests

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Forty-seven children and 4 adults were onboard on a tourist vessel from a summer camp and were caught in a storm on a lake in Karelia, northwest Russia. All the children appear to be from Moscow.

Forty-seven children and 4 adults were onboard on a tourist vessel from a summer camp and were caught in a storm on a lake in Karelia, northwest Russia. All the children appear to be from Moscow.

All of them were from the Park-Hotel Syamozero summer camp located on Lake Syamozero, not far from the border with Finland.

A total of 37 people from the 3 boats survived the incident, according to the Emergencies Ministry.

Fifteen children died in the Karelia lake disaster, according to the latest information, childrenโ€™s rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, wrote on Twitter.

The drowned children are from Moscow, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed on Twitter, expressing condolences to their families and friends.

Moscow authorities have sent rescuers, doctors, psychologists and social workers to the scene.

All of the victims of the Karelia boat disaster were children born between 2002 and 2004, who were staying at a camp, Vladimir Markin, the Investigative Committee spokesman, said.

There were no adults among the dead, he stressed, denying earlier reports that one of the instructors had died.

The kids, who died in the boat disaster, were between 9 and 11 years of age, Aleksey Gavrilov, deputy head of the Committee on Education, Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs at Kareliaโ€™s Legislative Assembly.

Childrenโ€™s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov has confirmed that orphans were among the children who died in a lake boat disaster in Karelia.

Earlier, Rosturism state agency said that, according to preliminary data, the deceased kids were orphans and children from troubled families.

One of the instructors who organized the boat trip in Karelia has been detained, Vladimir Markin, Investigative Committee spokesman, said in a statement.

Those children who died in the incident โ€œapparently had no life vestsโ€ and those who โ€œwere with life vests managed to survive,โ€ childrenโ€™s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told RIA.

Russia hadnโ€™t seen such a mass casualty incident in a summer childrenโ€™s camp for several years, according to the omdudsman.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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