A river cruise ship conducting a docking manoeuvre on the Rhine River ran aground in the city of Bonn in western Germany on Thursday, July 16.
The incident occurred at around 07:00 local time on Thursday when the hull of the Swiss-flagged Thurgau Gold made bottom contact on a sandbank.
The ship eventually ended up lying sideways across the river, though her position did not completely impede traffic in either direction, and other vessels were cleared to pass through at low speed.
An initial attempt by a fireboat to pull the cruise ship off the sandbank proved unsuccessful.
The Dutch-flagged inland freighter Sardius arrived at the incident site in the afternoon and successfully pulled Thurgau Gold away from the area before 18:00. The cruise ship was then brought to deeper water before being moored shoreside to allow an investigation to be conducted.
No injuries have been reported among the 75 passengers and 40 crewmembers.
The cruise ship had a draught of only 1.6 metres whereas the fairway depth at the time should have been two metres.
