11 children drown after storm catches boating group

At least 11 children and their adult instructor drowned in a storm while boating on a lake in Russia’s northwestern region of Karelia, official said on Sunday.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the nation’s main state investigative agency, said several boats with children overturned on Saturday in a storm in Syamozero, 120 kilometres east of the border with Finland in northwest Russia.

Of 47 children and four adult instructors in the boats, 11 children and one adult drowned, Markin said.

The tourist group that got caught in the storm consisted of two boats and one raft, according to information from the Emergencies Ministry. Rescuers have managed to save 36 people, but four people remain unaccounted for.

An instructor with the party was detained as part of an official probe, suspected of violating safety rules.

The children who went out boating came from Moscow and the capital's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, offered condolences to the victims' families.

“There has been a great tragedy in Karelia,” Sobyanin said. “According to the preliminary data, 10 children from Moscow have died on Lake Syamozero,” the mayor wrote on Twitter.

Those children who died in the incident “apparently had no life vests” and those who “were with life vests, managed to survive,” children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told RIA.

“Now we are trying to figure out who gave permission for the journey, if all were provided with the life vests,” Astakhov added.

Astakhov added that Russia hadn’t seen in years such a mass casualty incident in a summer children’s camp. “It is necessary to declare mourning in Karelia and Moscow,” he said.

Repeated warnings had been issued days ahead of the storm, advising everyone against boating on the lake, one of the favorite holiday destinations in the area, regional Karelia lawmaker Alexei Gavrilov said on Rossiya 24 television.

"They didn't have the right to go out boating," he said.

Local experts said that the lake could be extremely dangerous to navigate in strong winds, and even experienced local fishermen stayed away from the lake over the weekend.