THE mayor of New Orleans has said it was "a miracle" that nobody was killed when an out-of-control 763-ft freighter slammed into a hotel and $100 million shopping complex on the riverfront on Saturday. Mr Marc Morial said more than 100 people had been injured as tourists and shoppers fled from the boat's invading prow.
"It just kept coming," one shopping mall worker, Mr Chris Storey, said. "It started to shake and we looked out the store window - glass and water and the ceiling just started falling in. People started running out in panic and it just went black inside."
One eyewitness said, "The ground starting shaking like an earthquake and everyone started running out. People were trying to get off the casino boat, jumping into the river.
The Liberian merchant vessel, Bright Field, loaded with grain, suffered a fuel pump failure and lost power and steering control as it entered the bend in the Mississippi alongside New Orleans known as Algiers Point.
With its horns blaring, the ship slammed into the Riverwalk wharf, plunging its bow into the Hilton Hotel complex and then skidded to within 70 feet of a moored casino boat.
"It's almost like a pancake, about a football field long," a city council member, Mr Oliver Thomas, said. "Right where there was a wharf, there is water now."
Initial reports from the scene said at least six people had died, but this was later denied.
Although some people were still feared missing yesterday, Coast Guard teams searching the rubble with infra-red detectors found no signs of bodies. One of the injured was serious enough to be kept in hospital overnight.
The ship's horn and sirens of alarm began sounding nearly three minutes before the ship hit the wharf, giving people enough warning to start the evacuation.
Ms Nicole Trufant, who worked at a show store in the complex, said her boss looked out of the window, saw the ship coming, and they all got out in time. "Our store is in the water," she added.
Two tugs held the crumpled vessel locked in place against the wrecked wharf yesterday.
The crash is likely to fuel local demands for more restrictions on shipping in the crowded Mississippi river, where some 400 ships, a day pass by the city of New Orleans
It is the only spot on the Mississippi where traffic lights have been installed to control the river traffic
"It's the busiest and most treacherous stretch of the river," Lieut Verne Gifford, of the Coast Guard, said.