Two people were killed and five others were missing after a suspected collision involving a small motor boat and a cruise ship on the Danube River in the north of Budapest late on Saturday, Hungarian police said.

The body of an adult man was found near the site, while that of a woman was recovered further downstream and disaster response units were still searching for the five missing people, the police said on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the Budapest police, Soma Csecsi, said eight adults were aboard the small motor boat at the time of the suspected collision. The accident was reported on Saturday night after the police talked to a man found with a bleeding head wound near the main road by the river near Veroce, 55km north of Budapest.

“The police talked to the man and from his initial communication they drew the conclusion that he was probably the victim of some kind of boat accident,” Csecsi said.

The body of a man was recovered south of Veroce, while a woman’s body was found further downstream near a bridge on the northern outskirts of Budapest, where the police also recovered the damaged motor boat, he said.

“At the time of the accident a cruise ship was located in the area, which was stopped at the town of Komarom where the police have determined that the ship is damaged on one side,” he said.