[WATCH] Massive cruise ship crashes into Venice wharf, five injured

Massive cruise ship crashes into Venice wharf

A cruise ship has crashed into a dock and a tourist river boat in Venice, leaving at least five people injured.

The accident happened at around 8.30am on Sunday, and was reportedly caused by an engine failure on the ship, the 13-deck MSC Opera.

The ship hit a wharf on the Giudecca Canal, one of Venice’s principle thoroughfares that leads to St Mark’s square.

A video of the crash shows the massive cruise ship slamming head-on into the much smaller river boat and into the dock, as people ran away in panic.

“The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Davide Calderan, who heads the tugboat company which was accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italy’s press today.

“The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing,” he said.

The Opera, which can carry over 2,500 passengers, had previously suffered a mechanical power failure in 2011, as it was on a Baltic cruise.

MSC Cruises, founded in Italy in 1960, is a global Swiss-registered cruise line with its head offices in Geneva.