Viking ferry limps to port after hitting rocks

Viking Line Abp, a Finnish cruise company, said its M/S Amorella passenger ferry lost power and ran aground in the Aaland archipelago southwest of Finland.

No one was injured among the ship’s 1,945 passengers, who will remain on the vessel, which will continue its voyage to Mariehamn and is scheduled to arrive by 11 p.m. local time, Viking Line said in a statement on its website. The situation on the ship is calm and stable and there is no leak, the company said.

Passengers may stay on the ship overnight in Mariehamn, capital of the Aaland region, before boarding M/S Viking Grace to Turku or M/S Rosella to Stockholm, the company, based in the town, said in the statement.

M/S Amorella was en route to Stockholm from Turku, when it hit rocks at Julgrund, outside of Foegloe, at 12:40 p.m. Finnish time. The Baltic Sea isn’t yet frozen. The vessel, built in 1988 in Split, Croatia, is capable of carrying 2,400 people and 450 cars, according to Viking Line’s website.

The deadliest peacetime shipwreck in the Baltic Sea took place in September 1994, when Estline’s M/S Estonia sank in a storm near Utoe, taking the lives of more than 850 people.