A ferry with more than 800 passengers and crew stranded on board for 20 hours was finally towed to port after running aground early on today in heavy weather in the Baltic Sea.
Early reports spoke of initial panic among some passengers and a leak in the ferry's double hull, but a coastguard official said the situation was under control and no one was injured.
Operators of the Viking Line ship Isabella, travelling from Finland's west coast city of Turku to Stockholm, decided not to evacuate the 818 passengers and crew, and instead ordered the vessel to be towed to the nearby Aland Islands' Langnas harbour.
Isabellahas finally reached port, a Viking Line spokeswoman said.
It took several tug boats two hours to tow the vessel. Viking Line said it would now transport passengers via other ferries to Sweden or back to Finland.
The Finnish ferry operator said the cause of the accident was not yet known but said the ship went aground and hit rocks shortly after 1.00 a.m. (2300 GMT Wednesday) as it approached the Aland Islands in strong winds, low visibility and snowfall.
The accident came seven years after Europe's worst post-war maritime disaster when the ferry Estonia sank in rough seas in the Baltic Sea on its way from Tallinn to Stockholm, killing some 850 people.