Skopje - At least 22 people died when a tourist boat sank Saturday in Ohrid Lake in southwest Macedonia, local media reports said. Initial reports said 12 drowned and another five were missing, but Macedonian A1 television later reported that 22 bodies had been recovered.
The television also reported that there were 74 people on board - 62 of them Bulgarian tourists on their way to the medieval monastery St. Naum. The vessel was licensed for only 43 people.
The vessel, the Ilinden, was constructed in 1924 in Regensburg, Germany, and had recently undergone a technical checkup.
Witnesses told local media the vessel broke in two parts and sank within one minute.
First on the scene were people from a shoreside camping site. Police boats with diving equipment later arrived.
Local media reported that the Bulgarian government will send a special plane to Ohrid to collect victims and survivors.
Macedonian Minister of Transport Mile Janakievski has resigned on "moral grounds" over the accident, reports said.
Lake Ohrid, the deepest in the Balkans, is Macedonia's most popular tourist destination, drawing tens of thousands of local and foreign tourists every year.
UNESCO declared both the lake and the town Ohrid as World heritage site in 1980.
