MSC Opera in Venice

So you may of seen in the news the other day about MSC Opera crashing into another vessel whilst in Venice, the 65,500 ton ship was approaching the passenger terminal when it came into some trouble when trying to dock, the ship had an engine failure. It crashed into a River cruise vessell and some people were injured.

In videos online it showed passengers on shore running away from the ship to avoid the impact. But the captain said he did all he could to try and avoid the crash but because the ‘locked’ even two anchors were not enough.

Since then around 5000 residents of Venice have been protesting against ships from docking and sailing in the busy Giudecca Canal, they say the waves from the ships are eroding the foundations of the historic lagoon city which regularly floods. In 2013 it banned ships weighing more than 96,000 tons from the canal.

The ban was in part a response to the deadly 2012 Costa Concordia disaster, in which the 115,000-ton cruise ship hit a rock formation off the island of Giglio in Tuscany after its captain sailed too close to the shore.

However, that law was later overturned by a regional court, which ruled that safety or environmental risks had not been proven.

Two years ago, the government announced that larger ships would be diverted from the historic center but failed to follow through on that promise.

Do you think the the large ships should stay away from Venice? Accidents like this are very rare but do cause a lot of damage. If you didn’t see what happened to MSC Opera, then here is the video – https://youtu.be/fw03i_nR-WU