A massive wave slammed into a cruise ship carrying almost 2,000 holidaymakers around the Mediterranean, leaving two people dead and 14 injured.
The freak wave "smashed windows in the lounge area" of the Maltese-flagged Greek Cypriot-owned Louis Majesty off the coast of Spain, the country's maritime rescue service said.
The accident happened on Wednesday evening as the vessel sailed off Spain's northeastern Catalonia region en route for the Italian port of Genoa.
After the wave hit, the captain rerouted the ship to the Spanish port of Barcelona, where it arrived late Wednesday to evacuate the dead and injured.
Police in Greece said one of passengers killed was German and the other was Italian, but gave no further details.
Victims evacuated from ship
There were 1,350 passengers and 580 crew on the ship, including the Greek captain.
Spanish news reports said five people slightly injured while a 62-year-old woman was in serious condition with her both her legs broken.
A spokeswoman for the Barcelona port authority said the vessel had set off from Cartagena in southeast Spain earlier on Wednesday. She said it would continue to Genoa after evacuating the victims in Barcelona.
The 200-metre-long, 41,000-tonne Louis Majesty has 732 cabins.
In a statement, the Louis Cruises company expressed its "sincere condolences to the families of the two victims and its full support to the injured passengers," and pronounced "its deep sorrow for the incident".
Fourteen passengers hurt
"Louis Cruises regrets to announce that its Maltese-flagged cruise ship, MV Louis Majesty, while sailing from Barcelona to Genoa was hit by abnormal waves.
"As a result, the windows in a public area on deck 5 on the forward part of the vessel smashed resulting in the fatal injury of two passengers of German and Italian nationality while 14 more passengers suffered light injuries.
"The vessel's medical team is already providing all possible care to the injured passengers," the company said.
The ship was on a 12-day cruise from the ports of Genoa and Marseilles in the western Mediterranean calling at Tangiers, Casablanca, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Cadiz, Cartagena, Barcelona.
In February 2005, several people on board a Bahamas-registered cruise ship carrying around 750 people were injured when it broke down during a heavy storm in the Mediterranean.
