Tour boat capsizes in upstate NY, 20 killed

NEW YORK - Twenty people from a senior citizens tour group were killed on Sunday when a small tour boat capsized after it hit the wake from a larger boat on Lake George in upstate New York, police said.

The 12-metre, glass-enclosed Ethan Allen, operated by Shoreline Cruises, was carrying 50 passengers and crew when it capsized on Lake George, a resort area some 320km north of New York City at about 3pm (0800 NZT Monday), Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland told a news conference.

Most if not all of the tourists were from Canada, although eyewitnesses told local media some might have been from Michigan. No identities were released.

Witnesses and authorities said the boat was making a left turn when the it hit the wake of a larger boat, the Mohican, operated by Lake George Steamboat Co, which swamped and flipped the Ethan Allen sending the elderly passengers, who were on the upper deck and not wearing life jackets, into the water.

The captain survived the accident and was visibly shaken, witnesses said.

Local resident Frank Sause, who went to the lake after hearing emergency sirens, told CNN that several boats rushed to the accident scene in the lake to help rescue more than a dozen survivors who clung to the capsized boat for several minutes before it sank in the placid waters on a sunny afternoon. Fire and other rescue teams were on the scene within minutes to pull the elderly tourists out of the water.

Some witnesses reported seeing some smoke coming from the boat just before it sank by the stern.

"That's my wife, she's dead," Sause quoted one elderly survivor as saying as he was brought to shore. A temporary morgue was set up at a nearby campground, and bodies lay on the ground under white covers.

Media reports said the Ethan Allen was about 15-30 metres from shore when the accident happened. The injured were taken to a hospital in Glens Falls, the Glens Falls Post Star reported on its website.

Several local residents said the tour boat company had a good reputation with no known serious accidents and that nothing of the sort had occurred on the popular lake in memory.

"It is a tragedy and it's very unfortunate," Shoreline owner Jim Quirk told the Post Star as he paced up and down the lakeside walkway near his business.

Cleveland said all 29 people who survived the accident had been accounted for and the operation had been changed from a rescue to a recovery.

- REUTERS