The searches resumed at dawn today for the 12 people who are still missing after the fire that broke out yesterday on board the Euroferry Olympia ferry of Grimaldi Lines off the Greek island of Corfu. The exact number was confirmed by the Greek government with the statements of the Minister of Navigation, Yiannis Plakiotakis.
278 between passengers and crew members were recovered with "a major operation through the Coast Guard, Air Force and Navy".
The missing are all truck drivers, nine of them Bulgarians and three Greeks. Some truck drivers rescued yesterday testified that several of their colleagues preferred to sleep aboard the vehicles parked on the deck because the cabins and passenger lounges were overcrowded.
Grimaldi Lines announced that at the time of the disaster the ferry was carrying 239 passengers, 51 crew members as well as 153 heavy vehicles and 32 cars, but the Greek coast guard said that two of the rescued people were not registered as passengers: they are two Afghan citizens.
In these hours the Greek media tell the story of one of the shipwrecked: a man who had already experienced moments of panic during a similar episode as he was also aboard the Norman Atlantic , the ship which, in December 2014, while found in the Canale d'Otranto, it had caught fire. The victims had been 31.
"Compared to the previous incident - he explained - there was a faster mobilization inside the ship and they were able to leave it in time" and also the weather conditions, in this circumstance, "were a positive factor".
(Unioneonline / ss)
