| 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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