Ship with US tourists hits Vienna bridge

Nineteen people were injured when a tourist ship with 135 passengers, mainly US travellers, hit a bridge on the Danube river yesterday in Vienna, police said.

The German-registered ms Viking Europe en route from Amsterdam to Budapest hit a pillar of the bridge but was able to keep moving and tied up at a nearby dock.

"It happened while the ship was turning. The rear of the ship struck a pier of the bridge," a police spokesman said.

Most of the injured were Americans, police said, but gave no breakdown.

The injuries were minor, with passengers suffering scrapes and bruises. A ship's cook suffered a slight burn when the impact knocked him over in the galley.

Of the 135 passengers, 129 were Americans and the rest British and Canadian, police said. There were 39 crew.

The cause of the crash was not yet determined, Colonel Robert Haas, commander of the Vienna river police, told the Austrian news agency APA.

The ship was still functional and the damage to the busy road bridge was slight, police said.