Nine of the 17 people who died when a tour boat sank in a Missouri lake were from the same family, according to the governor of Missouri.
A family of mourners stop to place a flower on a World War II DUKW boat used by Ride The Ducks tours on July 20, 2018 in Branson, Missouri. Photo: Michael Thomas/Getty Images/AFP
Governor Michael Parson said that he spoke to a woman who "lost nine of the 11 members of her family".
"It's difficult to find the right words to say," he said, describing the conversation to CNN.
The "duck boat" was carrying 31 people when it overturned on Table Rock Lake, a popular tourist attraction.
Missouri Highway Patrol said the ages of the deceased range from one to 70.
A spokesman for the governor told the BBC that they would not immediately provide further details about victims, and it is not yet known whether it was a multi-generational family or if it was a couple with nine children.
How did the accident unfold?
The vessel began taking on water shortly before 19:00 (local time) on Thursday.
Video footage shot by a witness on shore showed two duck boats struggling through choppy waters and spray.
One of the boats made it to shore but the other was driven back by the wind and eventually overwhelmed.
This video grab taken from handout footage released by the Southern Stone County Fire Protection District shows crews working at the scene where a tourist boat capsized and sank Photo: AFP/ SOUTHER STONE COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT
During a press conference, Sheriff Doug Rader could not say whether passengers were wearing life vests at the time of the capsizing, or if the boat's windows were open.
Missouri law requires all children under the age of seven to wear life jackets on boats, unless they are in the "cabin area".
The vessel sank in 40ft (12m) of water before rolling to a final depth of 80ft.
Sheriff Rader said divers have located the sunken boat and will probably recover it later today.
'Shouldn't have been in the water'
Jim Pattison Jr, the tour boat company owner, said the storm appeared to have taken people in the area by surprise.
The boat, he told US media, "shouldn't have been in the water" due to the weather.
Mr Pattinson said that he has been told by his employees that the accident was likely caused by "a fast-moving storm that came out of basically nowhere".
"Usually the lake is very placid and it's not a long tour, they go in and kind of around an island and back. We had other boats in the water earlier and it had been a great, sort of calm experience," he said.
The company had been operating for 47 years without incident, Mr Pattinson told CBS, adding that the captain had over 16 years of experience on the water.
He also said that the boat had life jackets onboard, but added that under Missouri law, passengers are not required to wear them.
The deadly accident happened as a line of powerful thunderstorms rolled through the American Midwest, uprooting trees and felling power lines.
At the time of the accident, winds reached around 65mph (104 km/h), according to the National Weather Service.
- BBC
