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6 years ago

Death toll rises to 13 in Missouri boat accident

Rescuers searching for more survivors.
Rescuers searching for more survivors.

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Updated :

Divers have found two more bodies after a duck boat carrying tourists capsized in the US state of Missouri, bringing the death toll to 13.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Jason Pace said four others remain missing Friday after the accident on Table Rock Lake in Branson Thursday evening.

He says 14 others survived, but that seven were injured. Pace says those who died ranged in age from 1 to 70-years old.

The vessel was carrying about 30 people on Table Rock Lake near the town of Branson, reports BBC.

Branson is about 200 miles (320 kilometres) southeast of Kansas City and is a popular vacation spot for families and other tourists.

Seven people were taken to hospital, two with serious injuries, police said.

A spokeswoman for the Cox Medical Center in Branson, Brandei Clifton, said that four adults and three children had arrived at the hospital shortly after the incident.

It happened as a line of powerful thunderstorms rolled through the American Midwest, uprooting trees and downing power lines and prompting a weather warning.

US President Donald Trump offered his "deepest sympathies" in a Friday morning tweet.

Video footage shot by a witness on shore showed two duck boats struggling through choppy waters and spray. One of the boats made it to shore but the other was driven back by the wind and eventually overwhelmed.

Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader said one of his deputies was on board at the time and had helped to rescue some of the passengers.

"There was some heavy wind. It was having problems through the wind," Rader told reporters.

"They were coming back toward land. There was actually two ducks. The first one made it out. The second one didn't," he added.

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