The mayor of Venice has said cruise ships must change their routes after a huge holiday vessel crashed into a wharf and tourist boat, injuring five people.

Luigi Brugnaro said it was no longer conceivable that cruise ships could pass through the busy Giudecca canal and called for a new route to open immediately.

A video of the crash – which happened on Sunday morning after the 13-deck MSC Opera experienced an engine failure – shows people on land fleeing as the ship scrapes along the dockside, siren blaring, before ploughing into the River Countess tourist boat.

Venice’s port authority said it was working to resolve the accident and free up the blocked canal. “But from tomorrow we need to move, all together and as quickly as possible, to resolve the cruise ship traffic problem,” said Pino Musolino of the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority.

That cruise ships are allowed to pass through the Giudecca canal, a major thoroughfare that leads towards St Mark’s Square, before disgorging thousands of people in the popular tourist destination, has been a point of contention for years.

In June 2017, the No Grandi Navi (no large ships) activist group held an unofficial referendum in which Venetians voted in favour of ousting the ships from the city’s lagoon.

“We have four people bruised and one wounded … it could have been much worse,” Brugnaro tweeted. “It is no longer conceivable that big ships cross the Giudecca canal. We ask for the immediate opening of the Vittorio Emanuele [canal].”

A plan to divert large cruise ships away from St Mark’s basin and the Giudecca canal and towards the Vittorio Emanuele canal was drawn up by local authorities four years ago. “And in that time there has been no response [from the national government],” said Paola Mar, Venice tourism chief. “Our message is clear: enough, now.”

The Guardian