One of the passengers trapped on a ferry engulfed in a fire was found alive on Sunday, the Greek coast guard said. The man was spotted on the ship’s stern and was transferred to a tugboat.
The Italy-bound Euroferry Olympia vessel carried 292 passengers and crew when it caught fire early on Friday. The rescuers managed to transport 280 people of the ship on Friday and take them to Greece’s Corfu island. Emergency responders were still searching for 11 people, all thought to be truck drivers from Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey.
“I’m very worried, I don’t know what will happen,” Ilias Gerontidakis, the son of a missing Greek truck driver, told state television.
Firefighters delayed by extreme heat
The fire broke out three hours after the ferry left the port of Igoumenitsa, with authorities still attempting to determine the cause. Italy-based Grimaldi Lines that operated the ferry said the blaze started in a hold where vehicles were parked.
“We heard the alarm, we thought it was some kind of drill. But we saw through the portholes that people were running,” Karaolanidis told the AP news agency. “When I hit the deck, I saw smoke and children. Fortunately, they (the crew) acted quickly.”
“We saw death in front of us,” another rescued passenger, Danilo Carlucci, told Reuters from Corfu.
Small fires continued to burn inside the vessel on Sunday. Firefighters only managed to board the ship on Sunday morning, after delaying due to excessive heat. With the blaze raging, the ship’s outer sides had reached 600 degrees Celsius (more than 1,000 Fahrenheit), according to officials.
