Enlarge image
Burning Mediterranean ferry: Difficult rescue operation
Photo: GUGLIELMO MANGIAPANE / REUTERS
The search for missing persons on the Italian car ferry "Euroferry Olympia", which has been on fire since Friday in the southern Adriatic, is extremely complicated.
»We measure temperatures of around 600 degrees on the outside of the ship.
You can't do anything like that," said the head of the special command of the Greek civil defense Giorgos Mitsis, on Greek television.
There is no trace of the twelve people who are on the official list of missing passengers.
On Saturday afternoon, thick clouds of smoke could again be seen from miles away, as Greek media reported.
The public prosecutor's office of the island of Corfu meanwhile initiated an initial investigation.
The captain and two officers were to testify first.
There have been no arrests so far, the state broadcaster reported.
According to information from coast guard circles in Piraeus, seven missing persons come from Bulgaria, three from Greece and one person each from Turkey and Lithuania.
They were all truck drivers who had spent the night of Friday when the fire broke out in their vehicles on the garage decks - although this is not allowed, it said.
The ship was drifting north of the Greek island of Corfu and a few nautical miles off the Albanian coast on Saturday afternoon.
However, tugboats can control the movements of the ferry.
The ship must be brought to a safe harbor or bay soon.
The weather in the region of the disaster is good at the moment.
According to meteorologists, winds of force seven will blow in the southern Adriatic from Tuesday.
Patrol ships had also searched the waters around the holiday island of Corfu for possible survivors throughout the night, according to the Greek coast guard.
A total of 280 people have been brought to safety so far.
Nine people were slightly injured, one is in intensive care due to severe smoke inhalation in the Corfu hospital, state radio reported.
The fire on the ferry on the way from Igoumenitsa in northwestern Greece to the southern Italian port of Brindisi broke out on Friday around 4:30 a.m. (local time).
All people on board were asked to leave the ship immediately.
Within a short time the ferry was completely on fire.
According to the Italian shipping company Grimaldi, which owns the ferry, 290 people were registered on board: 239 passengers and 51 crew members.
The fact that, according to the coast guard, two migrants from Afghanistan who had not officially checked in on the ferry were among those rescued, fueled the concern that other people might not have been saved in reality.
Most of the people who were rescued told reporters at the scene that the ferry's crew acted in a "coordinated and professional manner" and got people onto the lifeboats first.
They were then picked up by the Greek Coast Guard and an Italian Guardia di Finanza ship, which happened to be in the area of the disaster on Friday, and taken to Corfu.
Letter of protest from Greek truck drivers
But there is also some information that the conditions on board the ferry were bad.
The association of Greek truck drivers had already protested in writing.
Among other things, the trucks on the car decks are said to have been parked too close together on previous trips, according to the letter of protest, which was published in the Greek press.
The union also complained that the ventilation system in the parking decks was not working and that there were not enough cabins for the number of passengers.
There is no information about the causes of the accident.
This will only be determined once the ship has been brought to safety, Greek Minister for Merchant Shipping Giannis Plakiotakis told Skai news channel.
Once the ship is secured, experts would first try to pump the fuel out of the wreck of the ferry to prevent an oil spill, the minister said.
wit/dpa/AFP