For educational purposes:
"RIGA, Latvia: Latvia's coast guard on Monday evacuated a stranded
cruise ship of more than 650 people after tug boats failed to pull the
luxury liner off an underwater sand bank in the Baltic Sea.
In a five-hour operation, 651 passengers =97 mostly elderly Germans =97
and 11 crew members were transferred from the 201-meter-long (660-foot-
long) Mona Lisa onto two naval ships, coast guard officials said.
They were taken about 37 kilometers (22 miles) to Ventspils, a port
city in northwestern Latvia, for onward travel to the capital, Riga.
The passengers and crew members left the ship down stepladders to the
naval ships without incident, coast guard spokeswoman Liene Ulbina
said.
She said that 322 crew members remain on board on the captain's orders
as the salvage operation continues.
Today in Europe
The 30,000-ton cruise ship ran aground early Sunday about 17
kilometers (10 miles) off Latvia's coast, as it was passing through
the Irbe Strait between Latvia and the Estonian island of Saaremaa.
The Mona Lisa's captain, a Greek national, agreed to evacuate the ship
Monday after unsuccessful efforts to free it from the sand bank.
Initially, rescuers pumped ballast water from the ship to lighten the
load, and then on Monday they tried pumping out fuel. But they were
unable to free the liner.
The Mona Lisa was on its way from Kiel, Germany, to Riga with 984
people on board when it ran aground, officials said.
Coast guard officials said the ship, which went into service in 1966,
was not damaged and passengers were never at risk. The cause of the
accident has not been determined.
The evacuated passengers would be taken by bus and train from
Ventspils to Riga, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) to the east, said
Sofija Galindoma, a spokeswoman for Ventspils town council. They will
be given food and water, she added.
Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis was in Ventspils to help oversee the
operation, his spokesman Krists Leiskalns said.
Coast guard chief Hermanis Cernovs told the Baltic News Service that
the Mona Lisa's owner =97 Germany-based Lord Nelson Seereisen =97 has
asked a Swedish company equipped with a powerful tugboat to help free
the ship."
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/05/europe/EU-GEN-Latvia-Stranded-Crui=
se-Ship.php
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=3D146009
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