The BBC tells us:

Latvian authorities have begun evacuating hundreds of people from a cruise ship stuck on a sandbank.

So far tugs have failed to free the Bahamas-registered Mona Lisa, which ran aground off Latvia on Sunday with nearly 1,000 people on board.

Officials say there is no danger to the passengers, most of whom are German.

The ship set sail from the German port of Kiel on 1 May for a 10-day Baltic cruise. It had been en route to Riga in Latvia when it hit a sandbank.

A total of 984 people are on board – 651 of them passengers, mostly elderly German tourists. Not all of the crew are being evacuated.

It is not yet clear how the 30,000-tonne liner came to run aground some 18 km (11 miles) off the Latvian coast in normal weather conditions. Read More…

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