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Seven South Korean tourists killed, 19 missing after Hungarian boat capsizes on Danube
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - At least seven people were killed and nearly 20 were missing after a pleasure boat carrying South Korean tourists capsized on the flooding Danube in the Hungarian capital on Wednesday, police and ambulance officials said.
The boat reportedly collided with another tourist vessel near the Hungarian parliament building, before turning over on the river, which has been flooding, with very strong currents, while a rainstorm enveloped Budapest.
In Seoul, the foreign ministry said the vessel sank with 33 South Korean tourists and a crew of two Hungarians aboard, adding that seven of the tourists were rescued but seven died, and 19 were missing.
An emergency rescue team is among the 18 officials South Korea plans to send to Budapest, the ministry said in a statement, and it will offer counseling to victims’ families.
A Hungarian ambulance spokesman told state television that 14 people were pulled from the water. Seven have died, with the rest suffering from hypothermia but stable.
A massive rescue effort deployed boats, divers, spotlights, and radar scanning to scour the river for several kilometers downstream from the accident site.
Journalists at the scene said they saw children’s ambulances on the riverbank, showing that children were also aboard.
But the hours that have passed since the accident, soon after 9 p.m. (1900 GMT), make it less likely for new survivors to be found in the central Budapest area, as strong currents have carried people far downstream, emergency rescue chiefs told state media.
The National Ambulance Service mounted searches along a stretch of the river downstream from Budapest and was on alert along a section further south in Hungary, where all boat traffic has been halted.
Television images showed the bank of the Danube closed off by police on the Pest side, across from the World Heritage site of Buda Castle.
The Danube’s flooding and currents made rescue efforts extremely difficult, a rescue diver told the state broadcaster, with water temperatures ranging between 10 and 12 degrees Celsius (50 and 54 degrees F).
The boat, the Mermaid, was a 27-m (89-ft) double-decker river cruise boat with a 150-horsepower engine and could hold up to 60 people, its owner, Panorama Deck Ltd., told state media.
“We are mobilizing every resource we have to protect human lives,” it said, adding that the Mermaid had been in its fleet since 2003, with regular maintenance.
Boat registry Hajoregiszter.hu showed the ship, originally built in the Soviet Union in 1949, received a Hungarian-made new engine in the 1980s.
Neither the registry nor the operator could be immediately reached for comment on the boat’s age.
A shipping expert told state television it was likely the pleasure boat had collided with a very large vessel that had sunk it very quickly.
The hull was found on the riverbed just a few hundred meters from its usual mooring point.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-accident-boat/seven-south-korean-tourists-killed-19-missing-after-hungarian-boat-capsizes-on-danube-idUSKCN1SZ2RB?il=0
Asian markets drop, dig deeper hole as selloff continues
Nikkei, Hang Seng down again after losses on Wall Street
Asian shares were mostly lower Thursday after another round of selling on Wall Street and investor worries about a trade war.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK, -0.62% dropped nearly 0.9% in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, -0.65% slipped 0.7% while South Korea’s Kospi 180721, +0.40% edged up 0.2%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, -0.42% was down 0.6%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.83% lost 0.8%. Stocks rose in Taiwan Y9999, +0.58% but fell in Singapore STI, -0.78%
Keep in mind that China already did this as a result of bailing out Baoshang Bank.
After Baoshang rescue, China central bank pours cash into banking system
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s central bank made its biggest daily net fund injection into the banking system in more than four months on Wednesday, a move traders saw as an attempt to calm the money market after the rescue of a troubled bank.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-openmarket-repo-idUSKCN1SZ050
and this
Alibaba mulls second listing in Hong Kong to raise US$20b
HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) - Alibaba Group Holding is considering raising US$20 billion (S$27.5 billion) via a second listing in Hong Kong after a record-breaking 2014 New York market debut, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a mega-deal that will bring China's largest company closer to investors in its home country.
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/alibaba-mulls-second-listing-in-hong-kong-to-raise-us20b
Among individual stocks, SoftBank Group 9984, -1.67% and Fast Retailing 9983, -1.84% fell in Tokyo trading, as did Nintendo 7974, -1.44% . In Hong Kong, Sunny Optical 2382, -2.82% and AAC 2018, -1.54% dropped, along with CSPC Pharmaceutical 1093, -2.91% . Samsung 005930, +1.79% and LG Electronics 066570, +1.69% advanced in South Korea. Mining giants BHP BHP, -1.47% and Rio Tinto RIO, -2.45% declined in Australia, as did Beach Energy BPT, -2.96% .
The latest market slide comes as investors worry that the trade war between the U.S. and China will derail global economic and corporate profit growth as it drags on with no sign of a resolution.
“The cracks in global equity markets threatened to grow wider still as relentless haven-buying of sovereign bonds overnight pushed key yields even lower and sent recession fears through stocks,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda.
“Asia is unlikely to feel much relief today either with both the Nikkei 225 and the ASX 200 down.”
On Wall Street, overnight, the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.69% fell 19.37 points, or 0.7%, to 2,783.02. The index had been down 1.3% earlier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.87% lost 221.36 points, or 0.9%, to 25,126.41. It had tumbled 409 points. The Nasdaq composite COMP, -0.79% slid 60.04 points, or 0.8%, to 7,547.31.
With two more trading days left in May, the S&P 500 is heading for a loss of 5.5%. That would be its first monthly loss since December. The market has been heading steadily lower this month as prospects for the economy have dimmed and as traders got more worried about the lingering trade feud between Washington and Beijing.
In early May the U.S. and China concluded their 11th round of trade talks with no agreement. The U.S. then more than doubled duties on $200 billion in Chinese imports, and China responded by raising its own tariffs.
Benchmark U.S. crude CLN19, +0.58% added 29 cents to $59.10 It fell 0.6% to settle at $58.81 a barrel Wednesday. Brent crude BRNN19, +0.24% , the international standard, gained 15 cents to $68.02 per barrel.
The dollar USDJPY, +0.02% rose to 109.54 Japanese yen from 109.31 yen on Wednesday.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-dig-deeper-hole-as-selloff-continues-2019-05-29?
https://www.cnbc.com/asia-markets/