One dead in passenger boat accident in HCMC

At 8:30 a.m., the passenger boat went to the middle of the Dong Nai River and collided with a barge. The impact overturned and sunk the boat.

As many frightened people were screaming for help, nearby passenger boats came to the rescue and took 12 people on board. However, Nguyen Thi Huong, a 32-year-old woman, drowned.

Nguyen Thi Tinh, Huong’s sister, said the two board the passenger boat at Dong Nai’s Bien Hoa Town in the morning to visit a pagoda in HCMC. About ten minutes after the boat left, it collided with the barge which was moving slowly on the river. The two sisters were wearing life vests when the accident happened.

According to Binh, a driver of the rescue boat, the collision flipped the boat over and quickly sunk it, which made it difficult to rescue the passengers. A Dong Nai rescue force came to rescue the people who had been on the boat.

The family members of the victims waiting on February 5, 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Phuoc Tuan

The area where the accident occurred was the channel where cargo ships enter ports in Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces. At 12:30 p.m., the rescue work ended. The HCMC and Dong Nai police are coordinating to investigate the accident.

The Dong Nai River stretches 586 km, making it the longest inland river in Vietnam, and the second largest river in southern Vietnam, only after the Mekong River.