Those on board the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak were “not well informed,” a passenger has told NBC News, with life continuing as usual even after the first death was announced.
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Ruhi Cenet was among the nearly 150 passengers aboard the Hondius. The Turkish travel vlogger has said that he boarded the ship in Ushuaia, Argentina, on April 1 to do a story about one of its stops, a remote archipelago in the South Atlantic.
But what started out as a luxury voyage soon turned “odd,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
On April 12, the ship’s captain began making an announcement to the passengers.
Cenet said he immediately felt that something was wrong because the captain had not participated in previous briefings. He decided to record the announcement.
“I felt something odd,” Cenet said.
The video shows the moment the captain announced into a microphone that a passenger had died a day earlier.
“This is my sad duty to inform you that one of our passengers suddenly passed away last night,” the captain says in the video.
“Tragic as it is, it was due to natural causes, we believe,” he continued. “And also whatever health issues he was struggling with, I’m told by the doctor, were not infectious, so the ship is safe when it comes to that.”
“The ship is safe. This gentleman, unfortunately, succumbed to natural causes. And like I say, we do what we can in order to continue in a safe and dignified way.”
Instead three of the ship’s passengers have died, and five more are believed to have been infected with a strain of the rare disease that can be transmitted person-to person. Countries around the world are now scrambling to track down people who were on board the ship and subsequently left.
It “turns out we were not well informed,” Cenet said in his interview.
“It’s very scary because it was nothing that we were ready for,” he added.
He said that life largely continued as normal on the ship given the messaging that the passenger who died was not infectious.
“Knowing that we didn’t get isolated and we didn’t take any caution for a solid 12 days, for my part, is a very sad situation.”
“I wish everyone was more mindful,” he said, adding that he took a blood test after returning home and had not shown symptoms.
He partly attributed that to isolating himself and eating meals alone in his cabin.
“I already kind of isolated myself from the crowd,” he said. “I started having my meals in my own cabin.”
He said that because most of the other passengers were senior citizens, he did not feel he had much “common ground” with them.
Cenet disembarked from the ship on the British overseas territory of Saint Helena on April 24, along with a number of other passengers.
The next day, he told the AFP news agency, he boarded the same flight to South Africa as the wife of the first victim.
She subsequently died.
The ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions, said in posts on social media that “We are aware of a video circulating online. This is the onboard announcement of the death of one of our guests. We want to provide clarity on this video.”
At the time of the announcement, it said, “the cause of death of this individual was unknown. No other symptomatic individuals were present on board. At the time of the announcement, no evidence of a virus or contagion was present on the vessel. The case was believed to be isolated following medical review.”
It added that “Proper procedure was followed in informing all guests and crew aboard m/v Hondius. Health and safety and maritime standards regarding the proper management and reporting of a death while at sea were followed.”
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