About 110 bodies, including those of 30 children, were found inside the wreck of a Russian cruise ship that sank in the Volga river on Sunday, rescuers said Monday.
"A preliminary examination conducted by divers from the Republic of Tatarstan showed that there are about 110 bodies aboard the sunken cruise ship, 30 of them are children," the Interfax news agency quoted rescuers as saying.
Rustam Minnikhanov, president of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, indicated that there were 196 aboard the the sunken ship, by press time.
The boat, called Bulgaria, was built in 1955 in Czechoslovakia and belongs to a local tourism company. It was going to the regional capital, Kazan from the town of Bulgar when the accident happened.
According to local media reports, three factors may have caused the accident, including the violation of ship's operation, overload, and aging of the ship.