At the Meppel boat builder Alumax Boats they held their breath this afternoon after seeing the images: a water taxi collided with a tour boat on the Nieuwe Maas in Rotterdam. The water taxi disappeared completely under water after the accident that happened at the Erasmus Bridge. “There is no cure against such a ship,” responds a spokesperson for Alumax, where the boats of the water taxi company in Rotterdam are made.
Six people on board were rescued, including the skipper and a child. They were all responsive and were taken to hospital for observation. The boat was upside down in the water after the accident and could be partially reversed with the help of another water taxi. The passengers were then rescued from the sinking water taxi.
“You are right, a kind of Pavlov reaction,” responds the spokesman. “We are closely connected with the water taxi company in Rotterdam, but at that moment so much is coming at them. The last thing they are waiting for is us. Contact will come naturally.”
The boats used by the Rotterdam taxi company all come from Meppel. Alumax has now produced sixteen in the past eleven years, transporting 420,000 people a year across the waters of the Dutch port capital. “We connect both banks of the Maas, it goes criss-cross through Rotterdam. We transport tourists and commuters, which actually solves the city’s mobility problem.”
The water taxis that roll off the production line in Meppel are made of ‘sturdy material’, the spokesperson reports. “But the tour boat was enormous. The power that is released, no material can withstand that. That is what makes the images so terrible.”
After the collision, the water taxi ended up at the bottom of the Nieuwe Maas. The vehicle was then recovered. The port police are continuing to investigate the accident.
View images below from after the accident between the water taxi and the tour boat: