Photo Gallery Stranded on the Sand
A cruise ship with nearly 1,000 people on board hit a sand bank off the coast of Latvia on Sunday and was still stranded there on Monday morning because tug boats have so far been unable to shift it.
The Bahamas-registered "Mona Lisa" has around 650 German passengers and about 320 crew on board and embarked from the German port of Kiel on a 10-day Baltic cruise with planned stops in the cities of Riga, Tallinn, St. Petersburg and Helsinki.
No one was hurt and the passengers still have full use of the liner's onboard facilities including fresh water, officials said.
However, the head of the coast guard has recommended that the ship be evacuated by Latvian naval vessels. Here a member of a helicopter rescue team comes to help the ship on Sunday.
