A crippled Soviet cruise ship limped toward port amid charges the vessel was speeding when it hit ice in arctic waters, forcing evacuation of hundreds of tourists and crew members.
The 573 mostly West German passengers on the Maxim Gorky were flown home to Dusseldorf early Wednesday from the remote arctic Norwegian island archipelago of Svalbard, where they were evacuated Tuesday night. Svalbard is part of Norway but under an international treaty has a Soviet settlement at Barentsburg.There were no casualties reported, but many of the returning passengers had tears in their eyes as they recounted their ordeal.
"I was scared to death," 70-year-old Else Roehrung told the West German news agency DPA.
"My jewelry, my clothes, my beautiful clothes, all gone," another elderly woman was quoted as saying.