A trickle of survivors from the Red Sea ferry disaster continued to arrive in Egypt on Sunday, though more than 700 people are still unaccounted for.
Six-year-old Muhammad Hassan was picked up alive 17 hours after the ship sank. He was travelling with his parents but they are missing.
”I got into the boat with mum and dad. We saw a lot of smoke and then it sank,” he told reporters from a hospital bed in the Egyptian port of Hurghada.
Sixty-one passengers plucked from the sea overnight reached Hurghada on SUnday, while six more arrived in Duba on the Saudi coast, according to Egyptian police.
The latest rescues bring the total number of survivors to more than 460. Search teams have also recovered 195 bodies and the chances of finding any more passengers alive are rapidly diminishing.
The 11 800-tonne al-Salam Buccaccio 98 sank on Thursday night while on its way from Duba to the Egyptian port of Safaga. Survivors say the tragedy began when a fire broke out on board. Water used to fight the blaze is thought to have made the ship unstable, causing it to capsize.
Speaking from a Saudi hospital, Rani Kamal, third officer on the ship, said the car deck had flooded. ”The ferry sank due to firefighting operations. Water flooded the garage [car deck], which is where the fire started, and it pooled on one side,” he told the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya.
”Then the water increased until the ship listed sharply. It listed five, then 10 degrees and then 15 and then 25 degrees and that was the beginning of the end.”
Kamal was rescued from a dinghy by Saudi coastguards.
Surviving passengers have accused the captain and crew of negligence, saying the captain, Sayed Omar, abandoned the ship before making sure everyone was safe. They said crew members prevented them from wearing lifejackets and did not get them into lifeboats.
Egyptian media have also accused the ferry operators of making the Panamanian-registered ship unsafe by adding extra decks after buying it from Italy.
An Egyptian survivor, Shahata Ali, said the captain had told passengers not to worry about the fire. ”We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left,” he told Reuters television
”The captain was the first to leave,” added Khaled Hassan, another survivor. There has been no indication so far as to whether the captain is still alive and, if so, where he is.
Among questions still to be answered are why the crew sent no distress signal to shore stations and failed to evacuate the ship in good time. Hussein el-Harmil, head of Egypt’s maritime safety board, said on Sunday there had been ample time to organise an evacuation.
”There could have been … loss of communications or poor management by those dealing with the fire and by the captain, leading to hurried actions which could have led to the sinking of this ferry,” he told Egyptian television.
The Egyptian owners of the ferry, el-Salam Maritime Transport, said in a statement that the vessel complied with all international safety regulations.
Speaking on Egyptian television, Mamdouh Ismail, the company head, promised compensation equivalent to $26 000 for the family of each victim. This was the maximum provided for under Egyptian law, he said.
In Safaga authorities deployed more riot police on Sunday and relatives of the missing taunted them with chants of ”Down with the interior ministry, down with [President] Mubarak.” – Guardian Unlimited Â