The confirmed death toll in a Russian riverboat sinking reached 100 today after divers recovered more bodies from the vessel, an Emergency Situations Ministry official said.
A total of 29 of the 208 people who were aboard the ageing, overcrowded boat when it sank in the River Volga on Sunday are still unaccounted for and feared dead. Officials say 79 people survived.
The Bulgaria, a 79m river cruiser built in 1955, listed onto its right side during a thunderstorm and sank in minutes in a broad stretch of the Volga in the Tatarstan region, trapping many passengers inside, survivors said.
The precise cause of the disaster was not clear, but prosecutors said the boat, which they said lacked a licence to carry passengers, was already listing to the right when it left port Sunday and had engine trouble.
Emergency officials said the boat was meant for up to 140 people but was carrying 208, including 25 unregistered passengers.
The confirmed dead included 17 children, but emergency officials said yesterday that divers had seen about 50 bodies, most of them children, in a recreation room on the sunken boat.