Venice: Cruise ship rams into tourist boat, 4 injured

A cruise ship rammed into a Venice dock, crashing into the wharf and hitting a tourist boat after suffering an engine failure on Sunday.

Video footage posted on Twitter showed that the tourists, who were present on the dock, ran for their safety as the 13-deck MSC Opera scraped along the dockside, before knocking into a tourist boat.

Port authorities confirmed Al Jazeera that at least four people suffered slight injuries in the accident that took place around 8.30am (local time) at San Basilio-Zattere in Venice's Giudecca Canal, one of the busiest in the Italian city and hugely popular among tourists.

The four, who were taken to hospital for check-ups, were on board the 'River Countess' tourist boat.

Davide Calderan, head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told the Italian state media that "The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain".

"The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing," he added.

The cruise ship operator, MSC Cruises, later said in a statement cited by CNN that the vessel "experienced a technical issue" while heading towards the terminal for mooring.

"Investigations to understand the exact causes of the events are currently in progress," it said. In the meantime, the ship has "received authorization to be moored at the Marittima terminal, as planned.