Viking Line Ferry Runs Aground Off Finland

M/S Amorella, image by Jonas Bergsten

Dec. 15 (Update) —  The M/S Amorella safely arrived at Laangnaes early Sunday, according to media reports.

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) — Viking Line Abp, a Finnish cruise company, said its M/S Amorella passenger ferry lost power and ran aground in the Aaland archipelago southwest of Finland.

No one was injured among the ship’s 1,945 passengers, who will remain on the vessel as the company attempts to tow it to Laangnaes port later today, Mariehamn-based Viking Line said in a statement on its website. The situation on the ship is calm and stable and there is no leak, the company said.

“At the moment there’s no need to evacuate at sea,” Christa Groenlund, a spokeswoman for Viking, said by e-mail.

M/S Amorella was en route to Stockholm from Turku, when it hit rocks at Julgrund, outside of Foegloe, at 12:40 p.m. Finnish time. The Baltic Sea isn’t yet frozen. The vessel, built in 1988 in Split, Croatia, is capable of carrying 2,400 people and 450 cars, according to Viking Line’s website.

The deadliest peacetime shipwreck in the Baltic Sea took place in September 1994, when Estline’s M/S Estonia sank in a storm near Utoe, taking the lives of more than 850 people.

– Kati Pohjanpalo, Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.

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