VIETNAM, Jul 20 \u2013 At least 37 people have died and several are still missing after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam during bad weather.<\/p>\n
The incident took place in Ha Long Bay, a popular tourist destination in the north of the country.<\/p>\n
Most of the passengers were reportedly Vietnamese families visiting from the capital Hanoi.<\/p>\n
Heavy rain has been hindering the search for survivors, rescuers say,but so far 11 people have been pulled from the water alive.<\/p>\n
The vessel, named Wonder Seas, was carrying 53 people when it capsized after encountering a sudden storm, a statement from the Vietnamese Border Guards and navy said.<\/p>\n
An eyewitness told AFP news agency that the sky darkened around 14:00 local time on Saturday (07:00 GMT).<\/p>\n
There were \u201chailstones as big as toes with torrential rain, thunderstorm and lightning\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
A 10-year-old boy was rescued after being trapped in an air pocket in the upturned hull, local media say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took a deep breath\u2026 dived, then swam up. I even shouted for help, then I was pulled up by a boat\u201d, the boy \u2013 who had been travelling with his parents \u2013 told state media outlet VietnamNet.<\/p>\n
Of the bodies so far recovered, at least eight were children, VNExpress reports.<\/p>\n
Rescue efforts are set to continue into the night to find the many still missing.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his condolences to the families of the dead.<\/p>\n
Authorities will investigate the cause of the accident and \u201cstrictly handle violations\u201d, a government statement said.<\/p>\n
Ha Long Bay in Quang Ninh province is dotted with hundreds of tiny islets, attracting four million tourists in 2019, and is a Unesco World Heritage site.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VIETNAM, Jul 20 \u2013 At least 37 people have died and several are still missing after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam during bad weather. The incident took place in Ha Long Bay, a popular tourist destination in the north of the country. Most of the passengers were reportedly Vietnamese families visiting from the capital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}