After their ship in Turkey was swallowed by a storm, the passengers were left wailing and clinging to their seats.
Due to the erratic weather on Thursday afternoon, passengers on the DO Istanbul Fast Ferries boat reportedly fainted as the normally three-hour trip took more than four hours.
A storm on the Sea of Marmara jolted the boat as it travelled 83 kilometres north from Avşa Island to Istanbul.
A passenger claimed that wind and rain began to batter the boat approximately 15 minutes into the trip and continued for nearly 45 minutes, according to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
They said, “It felt apocalyptic.”
At least four times when waves pounded the boat at around 3 o’clock, the skipper had to tell the passengers to calm down.
His remarks, however, did little to allay passengers’ anxieties as footage captured on board the ferry showed water entering it as passengers struggled to keep themselves from sliding overboard with each nauseating swing.
Waves from the ocean can be seen crashing into the drone as it is propelled up in footage posted by the online meteorological forum Hava Forum.
Fears of the ferry tipping over quickly increased as babies and little children wailed and the boat was forcefully rocked.
On that day, the inland sea was shaken by an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.1, according to the earthquake tracking website Volcano Discovery.
The ferry skipper declared that it was the ‘first time’ he had experienced such a storm in 15 years in his final statement before the boat successfully docked at the Avcilar Terminali port.
Severe motion sickness struck six travellers. There were no injuries recorded.
According to Hürriyet, the storm also caused havoc on a second ferry that was heading from Avşa to the southern Yenikap port.
According to the publication, some passengers “loudly prayed.”