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17 people dead after US 'duck boat' capsizes in Missouri

The vessel sank after it was caught in a storm on Thursday at Table Rock Lake
The vessel sank after it was caught in a storm on Thursday at Table Rock Lake

Divers have recovered the last four bodies from the wreckage of a "duck boat" that sank during a storm in the US state of Missouri.

17 people died after the tourist vessel capsized in one of the deadliest incidents of its kind in the US in recent years.

The World War Two-style amphibious vehicle was filled with 31 passengers including children when a microburst storm hit Table Rock Lake outside the tourist city of Branson, Missouri, on Thursday.

Wendy Doucey, an office manager at the Stone County sheriff's office, said the vehicle was 80 feet (24 metres) underwater.

The incident began on Thursday after thunderstorms rolled through the area, when two duck boats were out on the lake, officials said.

Both headed back to shore but only one made it.

"From what I understand there was life jackets in the duck," Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader told the press conference.

He declined to answer questions about whether passengers on the duck had been wearing them at the time.

The National Transportation Safety Board and US Coast Guard are investigating the incident.

Sheriff Rader noted that the boat's captain survived the sinking but the driver did not.

The company that owned the duck boat, Ripley Entertainment, said that it was working with families of the victims.

"Our number one priority is the families and our employees that were affected by this tragic accident," spokeswoman Suzanne Smagala-Potts said.  

Duck vehicles, used on sightseeing tours around the world, have been involved in a number of fatal accidents on land and in the water in the past two decades.

Thirteen people died in 1999 when the duck boat they were riding near Hot Springs, Arkansas, sank suddenly.

The company that builds ducks, Ride the Ducks International LLC, agreed in 2016 to pay a $1 million fine after one of the vehicles, which operate on land as well as water, collided with a bus in Seattle, killing five international students.

The company admitted to failing to comply with US vehicle manufacturing rules.

Two tourists died in Philadelphia in 2010 when the duck boat they were riding in was struck by a tugboat in the Delaware River.