A wild wave spooked cruise ship passengers on the North Sea on Thursday when it overtopped the ship and tossed it away, tour operator Thorsten Hansen told TMX.
“I love it,” Hansen posted on social media. “However, some of my guests are not so lucky.”
The video shows the rogue wave off the Otto Sverdrup off the coast of Germany on Friday. The ship is over 450 feet long, 70 feet wide, weighs nearly 16,000 tons, and has eight decks, and yet the monster wave dwarfed the ship. The Otto Sverdrup offers space for up to 500 passengers.
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The rogue wave that overturned a Norwegian cruise ship.
According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, storm winds of force Pia hit the North Sea and large parts of Europe on Thursday and Friday. Rough seas interacting with the ocean floor and shorelines formed the rogue wave, which can be twice the size of surrounding waves, according to NOAA.
Hansen said the wave was the same one that hit a nearby cruise ship, the Maud, around the same time. The wave shattered at least two windows on the bridge of the ship weighing more than 16,000 tons, and the incoming seawater disabled the navigation system and radar. According to local media and cruise line HX, the ship carrying 266 passengers and 131 crew members plunged into darkness when the power went out.
According to a trade publication, the crew was able to restart an engine.
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File: A photo of the Maud in port before the accident.
“Spent four hours in survival suits and life jackets while the Danish Coast Guard and local oil rigs sent out rescue boats to accompany us and provide navigation while the crew manually controlled the boat from the engine room,” one passenger wrote on Facebook. “Without a doubt one of the scariest nights of my life with gale force winds and 11 meter waves.”
The ship was on a voyage from Norway to England about 125 miles off the coast of Denmark.
Passenger killed after rogue wave hits cruise ship
The purple shows the ship's path from Norway to 120 miles off the coast of Denmark. The United Kingdom is to the west.
“There was about 20 minutes where I thought the ship might capsize, it was rocking so much and we had no idea what had happened,” an American passenger posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The cruise line initially reported no serious injuries, but German media reported that three passengers were taken to a hospital when they disembarked. Passengers reported broken bones, scratches and bruises.
Storm Pia changed the ship's course. Local media reported that about 200 people disembarked in Norway due to bad weather before the accident.
The ship limped to Bremerhaven, Germany, where many passengers had to remain on board as flights from the region were limited.
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Pia caused huge surf to hit coastal towns. People walk on the pier in Hammerhavn near Sandvig on the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, Denmark, on December 22, 2023, after Storm Pia hit the country.
HX reported that following repairs, the ship is not expected to return to service until February.
According to Hansen, passengers and crew members of the Otto Sverdrup were forced off the ship because Storm Pia had flooded the harbor.
Containers were also thrown off cargo ships on the high seas. On Saturday, beaches in Norway were littered with goods.
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Several containers became stranded between Tranum and Slette beach in northern Norway on December 23, 2023, after being lost in the North Sea during Storm Pia.
Elsewhere in Belgium, Storm Pia blew over a 65-foot Christmas tree onto a woman, killing her, according to the AP. In the Netherlands, another person was killed by another falling tree.
Original article source: Watch: Massive rogue waves attack cruise ship in North Sea