One Person Dead and Four Injured After Rogue Wave Smacks Into Cruise Ship
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According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a rogue wave is a large and unexpected extreme storm wave which is twice the size of its surrounding storm waves. According to NOAA they are rare, dangerous, and for the past few decades had been treated as a myth by scientists.
On Tuesday at around 10:40 PM local time Viking River Cruise's Polaris cruise ship which was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina was hit by a rare and dangerous “rogue wave” killing one American woman and injuring four others.
According to one American news outlet an unidentified 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the rogue wave broke cabin windows on the ship. Four other people on the ship were treated for “non-life-threatening injuries”.
Norwegian-flagged expedition #ship #VikingPolaris in the port of #Ushuaia, #Argentina, after an #accident in which one passenger died and four others were injured. In the midst of a #storm, a giant wave broke several glass panels of the ship’s cabins.
— ⚓️MarioDeFenza⚓️ (@MarioDeFenza) December 2, 2022
Via @Sharjah24 pic.twitter.com/sI3ZIcGStr
"It is with great sadness that we confirmed a guest passed away following the incident. We have notified the guest's family and shared our deepest sympathies," Viking said in a statement.
The rogue wave broke several windows on the cruise ship, and had been passing through the Drake Passage at the time. The Drake Passage extends from Cape Horn in South America to Antarctica's South Shetland Islands and is known for its unpredictable weather and extreme waves.
According to Viking the ship sustained “limited damage” and was able to dock in Ushuaia on Wednesday “without further incident”.
"We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities," Viking said. "Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew, and we are working directly with them to arrange return travel."
A passenger on the cruise ship said the wave was so strong, she had wondered if the ship had hit an iceberg.
"We wondered if we hit an iceberg," said Suzie Gooding, an American passenger who was on the ship. "And there are no icebergs out here, but that's how it felt. Everything was fine until the rogue wave hit, and it was just sudden."
"We didn't know if we should get our gear ready for abandoning ship," she added.
"Clearly something big had happened," said Beverly Spiker, who was also a passenger on the cruise. "A lot of water came shooting in. Luckily, our windows did hold," she said, explaining that the window frame of her and her husband’s cabin had broken due to the rogue wave.
Rogue waves—waves that appear to be walls that reach heights so great they are able to block out the sky—were seen as a myth by scientists for centuries.
But in 1995 a sensor on a Norwegian oil rig captured proof of a wave that rose to 85 feet in height (26 meters). And that same year the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 was struck by an 88-foot wave (27 meters), and so it wasn’t until the mid-1990s when scientists realized that these waves were real, and that they happen more often than they had preciously assumed: once every 10,000 years.
The Viking Polaris was launched in 2022 and is the cruise line’s newest ship. Viking has canceled the ship’s next scheduled departure on December 5 for the Antarctic Explorer itinerary and announced that they will be investigating the incident.
