Global General

2 missing after barge capsizes duck boat in US

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-07-08 17:15

The barge 'The Resource' is seen on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, July 7, 2010. [Agencies]

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said divers found the duck boat in water about 50 feet deep. Crews would not attempt to recover it until Thursday at the earliest, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said.

There were 35 passengers and two crew members aboard the boat, said Coast Guard Senior Chief Bud Holden. Coast Guard boats assisted by police and fire crews worked to rescue people from the water, he said. A spokeswoman for the duck boat company, Ride the Ducks, said 39 people were aboard, and the reason for the discrepancy was unclear.

One passenger, Kevin Grace, 50, of St. Louis, said he had less than a minute to get a lifejacket on his 9-year-old daughter before the barge hit.

"We had 45 seconds to try to get the life jackets on our kids," he told The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. "Everyone panicked, rushing to the front of the boat."

Bystanders along the waterfront screamed as the barge hit the boat, said a security guard who was patrolling the area.

"I whirled around as the barge began to run over the duck boat," said Larry Waxmunski, a guard for the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. "After the barge hit it - it almost looked like slow motion - the duck boat began to turn over."

Television footage showed at least five people being pulled from the water wearing life vests in an area of the river near the Old City neighborhood, popular with tourists. Helicopter footage showed people in life vests being helped from boats onto a dock and at least one person on a gurney.

One crew member from the duck boat was rescued by the ferry that the Delaware River Port Authority was operating on its scheduled route between Philadelphia and Camden, authority spokesman Ed Kasuba said.

Officials said the barge was owned by the city and being directed by a tugboat owned by K-Sea Transportation Partners, of East Brunswick, N.J.

The city Water Department uses the barge to transport sludge from a sewage plant in northeast Philadelphia to a recycling plant downriver, mayoral spokeswoman Maura Kennedy said. The city has a contract with K-Sea, which operates the tugboat that pulled the unmanned and unpowered barge.