Yesterday a tourist ship carrying 51 people sank in the Black Sea. Officials with the Ukrainian Coastguard report that as many as 19 may have died. The 37 year old ship, the Pamyat Merkuriya, failed to arrive on schedule at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Yevpatoria. Coastguard officials pulled several people from life rafts after passing ships spotted survivors. Apparently the doomed ship's radio was old and did not work properly. As such, no emergency radio transmission was ever heard from the Pamyat Merkuriya.

Many survivors were hospitalized suffering from hypothermia and skin inflammation. Passenger Grigory Kozov told Russia's NTV television that passengers did not panic as the ship went down. "The ship tilted, and was slowly listing for nine minutes," he said. However, even those who reached life rafts faced continued danger. "At first we were 24 people on the raft, then one died," Syrovatkin told NTV. "His heart stopped from the cold. Then we were 23."