The BBC News website released reports on September 15th with the story that at least 25 people, all of them tourists, sustained injuries whilst on a boat trip from Turkey to Greece.
The accident happened at approximately 11:20am local time when the Turkish-flagged Aegean Cat catamaran boat crashed into a jetty on the Greek Island of Kos. The boat had been carrying over 200 tourists, most of them British, from the Turkish town of Didim to Kos on a day trip.
It is understood that at least 25 people sustained injuries and the majority of these suffered fairly minor cuts and bruising caused by broken glass, however at least 5 had sustained more serious injuries in the form of broken bones. The authorities have confirmed that luckily none of the injuries was life threatening. All those injured were treated at the scene and were then taken to a nearby hospital were some remain.
A spokeswoman for the Greek Ministry of Mercantile Marine said the following:
“At 11.12am the ship was trying to get into the port of Kos when it crashed. We don’t know how it happened!”
Mr. David Gerasklis, who is the deputy mayor of the island of Kos said that he believed the boat could have suffered a mechanical failure but this is yet to be confirmed by the officials investigating. He said that the boat “had attempted to dock once, then returned with greater force and crashed into the dock for a second time. Some of the passengers apparently got up to see what happened, and they were injured in the second crash.”
One passenger who was on the boat but luckily avoided injury said how he feared the boat was going to sink. He said that “passengers had panicked as the boat hit the wharf and people suffered broken bones and whiplash injuries as they were thrown about.”
It has been confirmed that the local Port Authority for Kos and UK Foreign Office have launched an investigation to try and establish what happened and they are urgently looking into the matter. There were no adverse weather conditions at the time of the accident and it is therefore suspected that the likely cause is down to either human or mechanical error.
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