Passengers with battered bodies and crew members yelling in code sent passengers aboard the Viking Polaris cruise ship right into a frenzy within the moments after the liner was smashed by a killer rogue wave, a witness to the chaos said.
“I saw people banged up, bandaged and bruised. One man had stitches across his brow, one other woman had a bandage across her head. One other had an enormous lump on their head that looked like he had been beaten up with a baseball bat,” Tamarah Castaneda, a retired firefighter, told the DailyMail.
The ship was traveling in stormy weather through the notoriously treacherous Drakes Passage between South America and Antarctica when a rogue wave hit the boat at 10:40 p.m., shattering several cabin windows.
Castaneda said the wave was so strong that she initially thought there was an internal explosion on the ship. She described the powerful noise as two cars crashing into each other.
Her wife, Deborah Terry said the wave was a “horrendous jolt just like the ship had bumped into a brick wall.”
The crash was followed by chaos and yelling. Terry said she overheard crew members saying the ship was taking over water. A “Code Delta” announcement was made ordering passengers to remain of their cabins.
Terry and Castaneda were so nervous that the ship was sinking that they began packing a drybag of essential items until an announcement was made that the ship was going to proceed moving.
The next day, it was revealed that Sheri Zhu, 62, died after she was struck by the broken glass from a shattered window. Other passengers were battered by the wave, but survived the terrifying ordeal.
The cruise ship had been making its second voyage of the trip through Drakes Passage with a purpose to bring one other passenger to a hospital. An unidentified woman had been injured during an tour in Antarctica earlier within the day, Terry said.
Groups of passengers had been returning to the ship in Zodiac Inflatable Rescue Boats after exploring a landmass on the continent when the weather began to sour. A lady shattered her leg, the couple overheard on a crewmember’s radio, and her injuries were so severe that she required surgery.
“A helicopter couldn’t are available due to the weather and there have been no other ships near us so,” Terry said. “We were told all the opposite activities were canceled. My wife and I understood but we were disillusioned.”
The Viking crew opted to travel back to Argentina, where the liner set sail from, despite the worsening weather. The journey through Drakes Passage had been daunting the primary time through, Terry said, but was noticeably more formidable upon the second trip.
The passengers carried on with their vacations, nonetheless, confident that the cruise ship could withstand the storm.
“We went to dinner and our glass of wine slid right off the table and shattered,” Terry recalled. “People were dancing and eating and there was no thought there was a catastrophe happening.”
Castaneda and Terry had filmed the huge swells engulfing the cruise ship from their room on the third floor of the luxurious liner within the hours before the chaos.
One other video taken by the couple from the ship’s yoga studio shows loads of white water because the waves churn across the moving boat. Terry estimated that the waves, which were breaking at their window, were roughly 40 feet high.
A passenger who had been in a cabin near Zhu’s told the couple he thought he was going to die when the rogue wave struck.
“The ceiling and partitions were collapsing, furniture was flying in every single place,” the person reportedly said.
Viking continues to be investigating the incident, it said in a statement last week.
Passengers with battered bodies and crew members yelling in code sent passengers aboard the Viking Polaris cruise ship right into a frenzy within the moments after the liner was smashed by a killer rogue wave, a witness to the chaos said.
“I saw people banged up, bandaged and bruised. One man had stitches across his brow, one other woman had a bandage across her head. One other had an enormous lump on their head that looked like he had been beaten up with a baseball bat,” Tamarah Castaneda, a retired firefighter, told the DailyMail.
The ship was traveling in stormy weather through the notoriously treacherous Drakes Passage between South America and Antarctica when a rogue wave hit the boat at 10:40 p.m., shattering several cabin windows.
Castaneda said the wave was so strong that she initially thought there was an internal explosion on the ship. She described the powerful noise as two cars crashing into each other.
Her wife, Deborah Terry said the wave was a “horrendous jolt just like the ship had bumped into a brick wall.”
The crash was followed by chaos and yelling. Terry said she overheard crew members saying the ship was taking over water. A “Code Delta” announcement was made ordering passengers to remain of their cabins.
Terry and Castaneda were so nervous that the ship was sinking that they began packing a drybag of essential items until an announcement was made that the ship was going to proceed moving.
The next day, it was revealed that Sheri Zhu, 62, died after she was struck by the broken glass from a shattered window. Other passengers were battered by the wave, but survived the terrifying ordeal.
The cruise ship had been making its second voyage of the trip through Drakes Passage with a purpose to bring one other passenger to a hospital. An unidentified woman had been injured during an tour in Antarctica earlier within the day, Terry said.
Groups of passengers had been returning to the ship in Zodiac Inflatable Rescue Boats after exploring a landmass on the continent when the weather began to sour. A lady shattered her leg, the couple overheard on a crewmember’s radio, and her injuries were so severe that she required surgery.
“A helicopter couldn’t are available due to the weather and there have been no other ships near us so,” Terry said. “We were told all the opposite activities were canceled. My wife and I understood but we were disillusioned.”
The Viking crew opted to travel back to Argentina, where the liner set sail from, despite the worsening weather. The journey through Drakes Passage had been daunting the primary time through, Terry said, but was noticeably more formidable upon the second trip.
The passengers carried on with their vacations, nonetheless, confident that the cruise ship could withstand the storm.
“We went to dinner and our glass of wine slid right off the table and shattered,” Terry recalled. “People were dancing and eating and there was no thought there was a catastrophe happening.”
Castaneda and Terry had filmed the huge swells engulfing the cruise ship from their room on the third floor of the luxurious liner within the hours before the chaos.
One other video taken by the couple from the ship’s yoga studio shows loads of white water because the waves churn across the moving boat. Terry estimated that the waves, which were breaking at their window, were roughly 40 feet high.
A passenger who had been in a cabin near Zhu’s told the couple he thought he was going to die when the rogue wave struck.
“The ceiling and partitions were collapsing, furniture was flying in every single place,” the person reportedly said.
Viking continues to be investigating the incident, it said in a statement last week.
