|
1,000 feared lost on doomed Egyptian ferry
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-04 20:50
An aging ferry sank in the choppy waters of the Red Sea on Friday with more
than 1,400 people on board, mainly Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia.
Most were feared lost, but at least 324 apparently made it to safety.
Passengers said fire broke out on board the ship early in its trip.
Transportation Minister Mohammed Lutfy Mansour told reporters early Saturday
that the fire was "small" and that investigators were working to determine
whether it was linked to the sinking. He said there was no explosion on the
vessel.
A handout shows the
Egyptian ferry Al Salam 98 which sank in the Red Sea February 3, 2006.
[Reuters] |
At the Egyptian port of Hurghada, nearly 140 survivors arrived early Saturday
— the first significant group to come to shore. They walked off the ship down a
ramp, some of them barefoot and shivering, wrapped in blankets, and immediately
boarded buses to take them to the hospital.
Many said the fire began between 90 minutes and 2 1/2 hours after the ship's
departure, but that it kept going and the fire burned for hours.
"The fire happened about an hour or 90 minutes into the trip, but they
decided to keep going. It's negligence," one survivor, Nabil Zikry, said before
he was moved along by police, who tried to keep the survivors from talking to
journalists.
Ahmed Elew, an Egyptian in his 20s, said he reported the fire to the ship's
crew and they told him to help with the water hoses to put it out. At one point
there was an explosion, he said.
When the ship began sinking, Elew said he jumped into
the water and swam for several hours. He said he saw one overloaded lifeboat
overturn. He eventually got into another lifeboat. "Around me people were dying
and sinking," he said.
|
