Skip to main content
  • Share to or

11 people die in a boating collision in Volgograd

Source: Meduza

Eleven people died in Volgograd on Monday, when a barge tore through a catamaran near a cargo port in the city’s Voroshilovsky district. Investigators have opened a criminal case into water safety violations, and an emergency responder reportedly told the news agency TASS that the man piloting the catamaran, Dmitry Khakhalev, didn’t notice the barge and made no effort to avoid the collision. He also apparently failed to switch on his identification lights. Khakhalev’s vessel was also overloaded, it turns out, which is why the death toll was so high.

Sources told reporters that Dmitry Khakhalev is apparently one of Monday’s fatalities. He was a former state official who led the Kalachevsky district’s local government, before he was sentenced to four years in prison for attempted rape and firing a weapon at a recreation center in 2009. He was previously convicted of brawling with a police officer in 2006.

  • Share to or