Evacuating a building where there are 150 people is not easy. But when it comes to a boat, moreover adrift, and in the middle of the night, there, it becomes frankly complicated. This is what happened this Saturday evening on the Seine, in the center of Paris. Around 11:30 p.m., according to our information, a tourist boat full of passengers hit one of the piles of the Louis-Philippe bridge, between the right bank and Saint-Louis island.
According to the first elements collected on the spot, it is the propeller of the boat which would have struck a pile of the bridge. “What we do not know, however, is whether this accident is linked to a bad maneuver by the sailor or to a technical incident”, confides a police source.
After the collision, the boat began to drift. The river brigade and the firefighters of Paris therefore intervened to evacuate it. They moored the craft against the quay and invited the passengers and even the staff to join the mainland.
The tourists were able to end their trip on another boat
No injuries are finally to be deplored. Passengers were even able to board another cruise ship to complete their nighttime tour of the capital. After getting the passengers out, the emergency services were still unable to immobilize the ship, which was still adrift. The boat even, at one point, found itself across the river.
On Twitter, the mayor (PS) Ariel Weil indicated that the municipality was seeking “to know the state of the bridge”.
During the night, the boat was finally freed and river traffic was able to resume. “A Bateau-Mouche which inadvertently hits a pile, it has already happened, digs into his memory a Parisian yachtsman. But from there to evacuating the boat, this is the first time I’ve heard of it. »