Vietnam pledges justice after boat tragedy

VIETNAM will prosecute anyone responsible for the sinking of a tour boat in Halong Bay that killed 12 people, officials said at the weekend, as relatives arrived to take home the victims’ bodies.

Visitors from the United States, Sweden, Russia, Britain, Japan, France and Switzerland died when their boat sank while they slept before dawn on Thursday.

“It’s the deadliest Vietnamese tourism accident until now, and is a sad lesson,” Nguyen Quy Phuong, a deputy director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration, told AFP.