“Rogue wave” kills one passenger and injures four others on a cruise ship in Antarctica

One person was killed and four injured when a massive wave hit an Antarctic cruise ship during a storm as it was sailing from the southernmost point of South America, the company said Thursday.

The Viking Polaris cruise ship was sailing Wednesday toward Ushuaia, Argentina — the main embarkation point for expeditions to Antarctica — when a “vicious wave incident” occurred, a representative for cruise company Viking Polaris said in a statement.

“It is with great sadness that we have confirmed the death of the guest following the accident. We have informed the guest’s family and shared our deepest sympathies,” the statement said.

Four other tourists “suffered non-life-threatening injuries” and were treated on board.

“We wondered if we’d hit an iceberg,” Susie Gooding, a cyclist from North Carolina, said. he told WRAL-TV. “And there are no icebergs here, but that’s how it felt.”

Gooding told the station that the impact of the wave was “terrifying”.

“Everything was fine until the rogue wave hit, and it was sudden. Shocking,” Gooding said. “We didn’t know if we should get our equipment ready to abandon ship.”

The ship sustained minor damage and docked off Ushuaia, 3,200 kilometers (about 2,000 miles) from the capital, Buenos Aires, with several windows blown out on its side, AFP journalists reported.

Viking said it was “investigating the facts surrounding this incident”.

Scientists often refer to rogue waves as intense storm waves that shoot out of nowhere, often in an unpredictable direction, and can appear as a steep wall of water, up to twice the size of surrounding waves.

These rare killer waves were seen as a myth reported by sailors or explorers. Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton In his book, he wrote about a strange “giant” wave he encountered in Antarctica in 1916.

However, scientists have learned more about them in recent decades, studying how they appear and how to predict the wall of water that can rise even in calm seas.

Viking Polaris, launched in 2022, is the newest ship in the company’s fleet.

The accident comes two weeks after the deaths of two tourists on another Antarctic cruise. The two men, aged 76 and 80, left the World Explorer ship for a ride on an inflatable Zodiac boat that capsized near shore.