A column of smoke coming out of the engine room, the sound of the alarm and the almost 800 passengers of the Gnv Azzurra ferry (763 is the official figure, to which must be added the 113 crew members on board) invited to go up onto the bridge passage.
Panic erupted off the coast of Corsica shortly after departing Porto Torres for Genoa. A fire last night around 8:30 PM disabled two of the ship's four engines while it was en route to the Ligurian port.
"It's my first time on a ship; I usually choose to travel by plane with my family. We've been through a nightmare," one passenger testified. An emergency was triggered, and the crew urged everyone to don life jackets and go up to the outside decks, with intermittent blackouts until 2 a.m. "People were crying, tense and scared." Children, teenagers, and elderly people gathered on deck, while an emergency team attempted to put out the fire.
Late at night, they reassured passengers that "everything was under control." A student from the Paglietti Institute in Porto Torres was also on board. "Black smoke, we were crammed onto the deck where they were distributing water, and we remained for two hours without any news," she said. Having departed at 6:00 a.m., the ship is now returning to the port of Porto Torres escorted by a tugboat, without air conditioning and therefore very hot on board.
The operations are being coordinated by French maritime authorities in contact with the Rome Port Authority. Arrival at the port of Turri is expected around 4:00 PM.
The shipping company has meanwhile released a statement: "Passengers are being assisted; the extraordinary re-routing plan has already been activated to limit disruption."
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