Sinking of Bulgaria

On 10 July 2011, the passenger ship Bulgaria was traveling in Tatarstan on the Volga River when she was caught in a storm and sank at about 13:58 Moscow time (09:58 UTC), several hours after beginning her cruise.^[1]

Survivors say that during the cruise, Bulgaria encountered stormy weather, and listed sharply to starboard. This was apparently compounded by the captain trying to turn the boat around, and soon water rushed into the vessel through portholes that had been opened because the ship had no air conditioning. According to a survivor, the sinking came without warning, and the vessel "listed to starboard ... and capsized and sank. The boat sank within minutes, plunging nearly 20 metres (66 ft) to the river bed.^[2][3] The sinking occurred about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from shore, in the Kamsko-Ustyinsky District.^[4]

According To preliminary investigations, some investigations being conducted on this vessel indicated evidence exists which indicate that safety violations may have contributed to this tragic accident.^[5][6] This statement came from an anonymous interview with an unnamed source close to the investigation who stated that they believed a cause for the vessel's sinking could have been a series of open portholes due to not having air conditioning in the vessel, thus allowing water to enter when the Captain turned the vessel in stormy weather conditions. One survivor of the incident indicated that the crew had locked or sealed off the vessel's emergency exit doors, while investigators believe that the vessel left with a list to the starboard, likely from either sewage tanks or fuel tanks on the starboard side being full and thus resulting in lower than maximum performance from one or more engines. Guidelines for operating a passenger vessel require that should it lose an engine, it must cease operations until the engine has been repaired and returned to service; the failure of one of the engines on this vessel is being attributed to a violation of said guidelines. There were differing accounts from survivors on whether or not the downed vessel had proper licensing for passenger cruise ship operations or if it was the operating company's responsibility as to whether or not the ship and company were complying with licensing guidelines for conducting passenger cruises. Some crew members have indicated that just before the vessel sank, the ship experienced a failure of electrical power which caused the vessel's controls to stop functioning and rendered any emergency distress call to the Coast Guard impossible when the emergency power system failed for reasons still unidentified. While many of these details have been released to the general public, State and Local Agency Officials were not aware as to the identity or the number of individuals lost during this incident.^[7]

At the time of the incident, Bulgaria's total complement of passengers and crew is estimated to have been at 201, though she was only rated to carry 120. On 11 July 2011, a government official from the Ministry of Emergency Situations said that the likelihood of finding additional survivors was slim, leaving a presumed total of up to 129 dead.^[8][9] On 12 July 2011, the divers recovered bodies of Bulgaria's captain Alexander Ostrovsky and his spouse. As of 25 July 2011, the officially confirmed death toll was 122, with all bodies found so far identified.

Seventy-nine people (56 passengers and 23 crew members) were reported to have survived.^[7] Of those, 76 were rescued by the cruise ship Arabella, a few others were saved by other boats, and one swam to the shore.

President Dmitry Medvedev on 11 July ordered "a complete check on all means of passenger transport" in Russia in response to the sinking of Bulgaria, and also declared 12 July a national day of mourning for those killed in the incident.^[10]