HONG KONG: Eighty people were injured early Friday when a high-speed ferry travelling from Hong Kong to Macau hit an "unidentified object" in the water, according to Hong Kong's marine department.
"Information received from the Marine Department suggested that 80 people on the ferry were injured. Among them four were classified as seriously injured," a spokesman for the Hong Kong government told AFP.
The collision happened at around 1.20 am (1720 GMT) near the small island of Hei Ling Chau, the spokesman said.
After the accident the ferry managed to sail back to one of Hong Kong's downtown terminals where a dozen of ambulances were waiting to tend to the injured, he said.
It comes just a month after Hong Kong marked the one year anniversary of a sea collision which claimed 39 lives, the city's worst maritime disaster for over 40 years.
That fatal crash saw a launch carrying more than 120 people collide with a high-speed ferry near Lamma Island on October 1, 2012.
A subsequent inquiry found a "litany of errors" contributed to the accident, calling into question the safety of Hong Kong's waters.
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