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Rogue Wave Strikes Cruise Ship, Killing a Passenger and Injuring 4 Others

The passengers were hurt after a large, unpredictable wave hit the ship, which was traveling toward the Antarctic, Viking Cruises said.

By Amanda Holpuch

A passenger died and four others were injured after a large, unexpected wave hit a cruise ship traveling toward a popular launching point for expeditions to Antarctica, Viking Cruises said.

The ship, the Viking Polaris, was struck by a “rogue wave” on Tuesday at 10:40 p.m. local time while traveling toward Ushuaia, Argentina, which is on the southern tip of South America, Viking Cruises said in a statement .

Viking Cruises did not say how the passenger was killed or provide the passenger’s name. The four passengers who were injured were treated by onboard medical staff and had non-life-threatening injuries, Viking Cruises said.

A State Department official said that a U.S. citizen died and that the department was offering consular assistance to the person’s family.

Rogue waves are unpredictable, typically twice the size of surrounding waves and often come from a different direction than the surrounding wind and waves, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . Scientists are still trying to figure out how and when these uncommon waves form.

Ann Mah, of Topeka, Kan., told the news station WIBW that she and her husband were on the ship when it was hit by the wave and that it was “just like your whole house got shook really hard.”

“I mean, it was just a thud,” Ms. Mah said.

The Viking Polaris was launched this year and was designed for travel to remote destinations such as the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship is 665 feet long and can carry 378 passengers and 256 crew members.

The ship sustained “limited damage” from the wave and arrived in Ushuaia the day after it was struck, Viking Cruises said.

The cruise company canceled the Viking Polaris’s next scheduled trip, a 13-day cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula.

“We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities,” the company said.

Tourism to the Antarctic has steadily increased in the last 30 years, with 74,401 people traveling there in the 2019-20 season, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Roughly 6,700 people traveled there in the 1992-93 season, according to the association.

In recent years, some observers have warned that the increase in tourism may not be sustainable and that it could threaten visitor safety or disrupt the fragile environment, which is already straining under the effects of climate change.

It is the beginning of the Antarctic tourism season, which coincides with its summer, beginning in late October or early November and usually lasting until March.

The death on the Viking Cruises ship this week comes after the death of two other cruise ship passengers in the Antarctic last month. Two Quark Expeditions cruise ship passengers died after one of the ship’s heavy duty inflatable Zodiac boats overturned near shore, Seatrade Cruise News reported .

Amanda Holpuch is a general assignment reporter. More about Amanda Holpuch

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Wave that killed viking cruise passenger felt like ‘brick wall,’ witness claims.

Passengers with battered bodies and crew members yelling in code sent passengers aboard the Viking Polaris cruise ship into a frenzy in the moments after the liner was smashed by a killer rogue wave, a witness to the chaos said.

“I saw people banged up, bandaged and bruised. One man had stitches across his forehead, another woman had a bandage across her head. Another had a huge lump on their head that looked like he had been beaten up with a baseball bat,” Tamarah Castaneda, a retired firefighter, told the DailyMail.

The ship was traveling in stormy weather through the notoriously treacherous Drakes Passage between South America and Antarctica when a rogue wave hit the boat at 10:40 p.m., shattering several cabin windows.

Castaneda said the wave was so strong that she initially thought there was an internal explosion on the ship. She described the powerful noise as two cars crashing into one another.

Her wife, Deborah Terry said the wave was a “horrendous jolt like the ship had ran into a brick wall.”

The crash was followed by chaos and yelling. Terry said she overheard crew members saying the ship was taking on water. A “Code Delta” announcement was made ordering passengers to stay in their cabins.

Terry and Castaneda were so nervous that the ship was sinking that they began packing a drybag of essential items until an announcement was made that the ship was going to continue moving.

The following day, it was revealed that Sheri Zhu, 62, died after she was struck by the broken glass from a shattered window. Other passengers were battered by the wave, but survived the terrifying ordeal.

The cruise ship had been making its second voyage of the trip through Drakes Passage in order to bring another passenger to a hospital. An unidentified woman had been injured during an excursion in Antarctica earlier in the day, Terry said.

Groups of passengers had been returning to the ship in Zodiac Inflatable Rescue Boats after exploring a landmass on the continent when the weather began to sour. A woman shattered her leg, the couple overheard on a crewmember’s radio, and her injuries were so severe that she required surgery.

“A helicopter couldn’t come in because of the weather and there were no other ships close to us so,” Terry said. “We were told all the other activities were canceled. My wife and I understood but we were disappointed.”

The Viking crew opted to travel back to Argentina, where the liner set sail from, despite the worsening weather. The journey through Drakes Passage had been daunting the first time through, Terry said, but was noticeably more formidable upon the second trip.

The passengers carried on with their vacations, however, confident that the cruise ship could withstand the storm.

“We went to dinner and our glass of wine slid right off the table and shattered,” Terry recalled. “People were dancing and eating and there was no thought there was a catastrophe happening.”

Castaneda and Terry had filmed the massive swells engulfing the cruise ship from their room on the third floor of the luxury liner in the hours before the chaos.

Another video taken by the couple from the ship’s yoga studio shows plenty of white water as the waves churn around the moving boat. Terry estimated that the waves, which were breaking at their window, were approximately 40 feet high.

A passenger who had been in a cabin near Zhu’s told the couple he thought he was going to die when the rogue wave struck.

“The ceiling and walls were collapsing, furniture was flying everywhere,” the man reportedly said.

Viking is still investigating the incident, it said in a statement last week.

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'Rogue wave' strikes Antarctic cruise ship, leaves 1 dead and 4 injured

The Viking Polaris ship was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, at the time.

An American passenger on an Antarctic cruise died and four other guests were injured after their Viking ship was struck by a "rogue wave," officials said.

The incident happened on Tuesday around 10:40 p.m. local time while the Viking Polaris ship was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, Viking said.

MORE: Carnival cruise passenger who went overboard was 'dead set' on surviving

A guest died following the incident, Viking said, though did not share further details on the cause of death. The victim's family has been notified, the company said.

The passenger killed was a U.S. citizen, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to ABC News Friday.

"We are offering all appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment," the spokesperson said.

The victim was confirmed as Sheri Zhu, 62, by Secretary of the Ushuaia Federal Court Melina Rodriguez.

Four other guests sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the incident and were treated by the ship's doctor and medical staff, Viking said.

"We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities," Viking said in a statement Thursday. "Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew, and we are working directly with them to arrange return travel."

The ship sustained "limited damage" from the rogue wave and arrived in Ushuaia on Wednesday "without further incident," Viking said. Images taken of the docked ship showed several damaged windows.

Passengers on board the ship described choppy conditions leading up to the incident.

Californian Beverly Spiker told ABC News that a "huge smash" against the window of her and her husband's cabin caused her window frame to break.

"Clearly something big had happened," she said. "A lot of water came shooting in."

"Luckily, our windows did hold," she added, though said other rooms on their side of the ship were "washed out."

Spiker's cousin, Suzie Gooding, of North Carolina, told ABC News that at the time, the ship was going through the Drake Passage, "which is well-known for having turbulent seas."

Gooding said despite the conditions outside looking "horrible," the inside was "like a normal cruise ship" leading up to the incident. She said she felt a "sudden shudder" that caused cabinets to open.

"It was just unbelievable," she said. "At the time that it happened, we personally wondered if, you know, we knew that we weren't by any icebergs, but it's like, did we hit an iceberg? It just was so sudden."

Spiker said she and other passengers were "shook up" afterward.

"No matter what side of the boat you're on, it was felt throughout the ship that clearly something bad had happened," she said. "So everybody was pretty shook up."

MORE: Passengers hurt aboard Norwegian cruise ship after unexpected wind strikes: I felt 'like we're going to die'

The ship is docked as passengers await further travel plans from Viking, according to Gooding, who said that two other ships in their bay in Ushuaia were also damaged, possibly by rogue waves.

The Viking Polaris ship's next departure for the Antarctic, scheduled for Dec. 5, has been canceled "after careful consideration," the cruise line said.

Rogue, or extreme storm, waves are "greater than twice the size of surrounding waves" and are "very unpredictable," according to the National Ocean Service .

Ushuaia, at the southernmost tip of South America, is a common starting point for cruises to Antarctica.

ABC News' Matthew Seyler contributed to this report.

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