A man has died in Venice after a gondola carrying a family of tourists collided with a ferry on the city’s famous Grand Canal.
The 50 year old German man was believed to have been crushed to death when the gondola, which was carrying five members of the same family, was hit by a public ‘water bus’ close to the Rialto Bridge on Saturday.
A three-year-old girl thought to be his daughter was taken to hospital in Padua with serious head injuries.
Police spokeswoman Erica Veronica Di Francesco said the vaporetto – the public bus that ferries passengers around the Italian waterways – was pulling into dock when it crashed into the gondola carrying the German family.
The city’s mayor is now convening experts to resolve the growing problem of congestion on Venice’s waterways in the wake of the fatal accident, reports the Daily Mail.
Mayor Giorgio Orsoni said it was time to confront the problem of traffic clogging the city’s canals.
In a sign of mourning, some of Venice’s gondoliers ceased services for the afternoon, the ANSA news agency said.
