Cargo ship and Dutch passenger ferry collide in canal
AMSTERDAM | Fri Oct 22, 2010 3:28am EDT
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch emergency services were searching for survivors after a cargo ship collided with a foot passenger ferry in a shipping canal south of Amsterdam Friday morning, police said. The accident shut down shipping traffic on the canal as rescuers looked for ferry passengers who might have been thrown into the water, news agency ANP reported.
The captain of the passenger boat was reported missing. The accident took place near the town of Nieuwer ter Aa about 30 km (20 miles) south of Amsterdam in the busy Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. The 72 km long canal was built to connect the port city of Amsterdam to the Rhine, a major European shipping artery. Foot passenger boats in the Netherlands are usually smaller than normal ferries.
(Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block, editing by Tim Pearce)
