BUCHAREST, Romania -- Rescue teams searched the Danube River Monday for 164 passengers missing and feared dead in a collision between a Romanian passenger ship and a Bulgarian tug boat.
The collision took place Sunday on the Romanian section of the Danube near the city of Galati, about 125 miles northeast of Bucharest near the Soviet border, the Romanian news agency Agerpres said.
The Romanian Tourist Ministry said the victims were probably all local residents.
'It seems there were no foreign tourists on board. If there were tourists, we would know it,' a ministry official said.
There were 169 passengers and 13 crew members aboard the Romanian ship and initial reports said rescuers found 18 survivors.
The collision between the Romanian passenger ship Mogoshoaja and the Bulgarian tug Pita Karamonchev occurred in 'reduced visibility' at 8:20 a.m., said the official Bulgarian news agency monitored in Vienna.
The ship was operated by the Navrom company, which runs all the Romanian ships on the Danube.
Western diplomats said as of mid-day Monday, amid search efforts for missing ship passengers, Romanian officials still could offer few details.
He said although the ferry was reported as going from Galati to Braila upstream, one newspaper report suggested it was downstream of Galati.
Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu ordered an investigation of the maritime disaster and formed a special government commission. Bulgarian authorities said they would cooperate in the investigation.
The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, rises in West Germany's Black Forest and flows through Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary before reaching Romania, where it forms much of the Romanian-Bulgarian border and discharges into the Black Sea.
Braila, an industrial town of 158,000 located 135 miles from Bucharest, is one of the largest Romanian ports on the Danube, which at this point is deep enough to take large ships, including sea-going ships.
Galati, a city of 187,000 situated on a plateau, has one of the largest shipyards in the country.
