Three monstrous waves struck a Cypriot-owned cruise ship carrying almost 2,000 people off the coast of northeast Spain, killing two and injuring 14 others.

The Louis Majesty was carrying 1,350 passengers and 580 crew members, from a total of 27 countries, when the waves gushed onto it Wednesday, pouring through several floors of the ship

View of the Cypriot-owned Louis Majesty cruise ship at Barcelona's port on Thursday. Waves of more than 10 metres high smashed into the Mediterranean ship, flooding cabins, breaking windows and killing two people. (Manu Fernandez/Associated Press)

Ana Lita, a 68-year-old Italian woman who had a black eye and bandages on her head and hand Thursday, said she thought she would "end up in the sea, drowned.

"I remember when the wave hit," Lita said. "It broke all the windows, and I was rolling, and rolling and did not stop calling out for my husband."

Another Italian, Giovanni Zanoni, said that after the waves blew out the windows of the lounge, the ceiling caved in and pandemonium broke out.

"People were screaming, panicking. They were grabbing life vests," Zanoni said. He said he saw one huge shard of glass hit a man in the face, killing him. It took a while to find the body because he was under the wreckage of the ceiling, Zanoni said.

The ship's owner and operator, Louis Cruise Lines, said the vessel was struck Wednesday by three "abnormally high" waves more than 10 metres high that broke glass windshields in the forward section on deck 5, one of 10 used by passengers.

10-metre waves rare, says oceanographer

Large waves are not rare in the Mediterranean, but ones that size occur only once or twice a year, said Marta de Alfonso, an oceanographer with the Spanish government.

Louis Cruise Lines spokesman Michael Maratheftis said 14 passengers who suffered only minor injuries were taken to hospital as a precaution.

Maratheftis said the two dead passengers — a German and an Italian — suffered fatal injuries from the glass shards and ripped-out window frames and furniture.

The accident happened in an area of the Mediterranean called the Gulf of Leon, known for big waves when storms hit.

The ship was on a 12-day cruise from the ports of Genoa and Marseilles in the western Mediterranean, calling at Tangiers, Casablanca, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Cadiz, Cartagena and Barcelona, and had been due to return to Genoa on Thursday.

Passengers said the weather was terrible as they left Cartagena in eastern Spain on Wednesday, and the captain announced he was skipping a planned stop in Barcelona and heading straight for Italy.

Amateur video footage taken by a passenger and aired on Spanish television showed a huge, foamy wave hitting what appeared to be the lounge area, sending water gushing in and people scurrying for safety.