PA - The cruise
liner Oriana was tonight stranded in the Atlantic after a freak
wave shattered windows, injuring passengers and flooding cabins.
The P&O
liner was carrying 1,525 passengers and 800 crew on a cruise back
to Southampton from New York when it was caught in a storm force
10 gale today.
A wave thought
to have been about 12 metres high smashed through toughened glass
in six cabins, causing flooding inside.
Three passengers
suffered minor injuries from broken glass and four people had
to be treated for shock, a P&O spokesman said tonight.
The 69,000-tonne
ship is being held steady while running repairs are carried out
and is expected to return to Southampton later than planned on
Saturday.
The spokesman
said Oriana was nearly 1,000 kilometres west of Cork when the
wave struck, smashing cabin windows on the lower passenger deck.
“At no
time was the ship or its passengers in danger,” he said.
It is not
yet known what time on Saturday Oriana will reach Southampton,
or if it will be able to sail on a planned Mediterranean cruise
on Saturday evening.
The spokesman
said P&O would contact customers with more information when
it was available and said all the injured passengers had been
allowed to telephone relatives to reassure them.
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