Not all passengers would be safe on board the Grimaldi Euroferry Olympia ferry, which went up in flames this morning on the Igoumenitsa-Brindisi route: according to the Greek Coast Guard, the missing are 11 (none of the Italians, who were all rescued).
Contrary to what was reported in the first hours after the incident, the Corfu Port authorities said they had counted and identified 277 people savedbut according to data from the Athens Ministry of Navigation, 288 people were traveling on the ship, including passengers and crew (most of them were Bulgarian hauliers, but there were also several children).
A Hydra-class frigate of the Greek Navy and three helicopters, as well as six boats of the Greek and Italian coastguards, were mobilized to rescue them.
The incident occurred near the island of Erikoussa, off the north coast of Corfu Island, between Greece and Albania. “The ship, which set sail around 1.20 from the Greek port of Igoumenitsa with direction to Brindisi, caught fire while it was sailing in the Ionian Sea north of Corfu, about 9 miles from the coast”, explained the Guardia di Finanza in a Note. The passengers rescued by the financial police have been disembarked in the port of Corfu and will arrive tomorrow morning in Brindisi with a ship leaving from Ancona.
The fire could have been caused by a truck in the ship’s hold. The commander immediately issued the evacuation order, and the rescue machine was activated immediately. “There were very high flames, on board there was panic. On the lifeboats there were people screaming and throwing up, ”explained the entrepreneur from Brindisi, Mino Roma, who was on board. “There have been moments of panic, I don’t wish it to anyone. There were also children. It was cold and the lifeboats were taking on water since they were overloaded ».
“The commander of the ship, when the fire broke out, went around the cabins and gathered the passengers on a single deck,” added the commander of the patrol boat Felice Lodovico Simone Cicchetti. «Then he gave the ship abandonment, but the evacuation was not a walk in the park“.
Source: Vanity Fair
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