Italian coastguard says 251 of the 478 people on the Greece to Italy ferry evacuated by early Monday

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

More than 200 people were still trapped on a burning ferry between Italy and Albania on Monday morning, despite Italian, Greek and Albanian crews working in rough, freezing conditions through the night to rescue them.

Ships and helicopters fought choppy seas and strong winds in the dark in a race against time to rescue passengers still left aboard the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic.

The Italian coastguard said 251 of the 478 people on the ferry had been evacuated by early Monday.

Most were airlifted by helicopter to other merchant vessels sailing nearby, though a few were flown to southern Italy to be treated for hypothermia.



Officials in the Adriatic port of Bari were preparing for the first large group – around 49 people – to arrive early on Monday. They were initially expected in Brindisi down the coast, but rough seas forced a change of plans, officials said.

At least one person died and two were injured in the incident.

The fire broke out before dawn on Sunday on a car deck of the ferry, which was travelling from the western Greek port of Patras to the Italian port of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea, with 422 passengers and 56 crew members on board.

Passenger Giorgos Stiliaras told Greek Mega TV that people were awakened by “the smell of burning plastic” and that the heat from the fire felt like the floors were “boiling.”

Italy and Greece sent navy and coastguard vessels and helicopters, while nearby merchant ships lined up to form a barrier to protect the ferry from towering waves and to help the rescue.



Italian navy spokesman Riccardo Rizzotto said the weather was “so bad we need an extraordinary level of support” in the rescue operation.

As darkness fell, the Italian defence minister, Roberta Pinotti, said rescue operations would continue throughout the night. “It’s going to be a long night,” Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Twitter.

Nine of the rescued people were taken to the Italian town of Lecce. Of those, three children and a pregnant woman were being treated for hypothermia in Lecce hospital. Dr Raffaele Montinaro said the children were in excellent condition and emergency room doctor Antonio Palumbo said the mother’s condition was also good.

A Greek passenger who had fallen from an escape chute into the Adriatic Sea with his wife was found dead by Italian coastguards, despite repeated attempts at an air rescue amid six-metre (19.6-ft) waves.

His injured wife was safely plucked from the water and transferred to the Italian port of Brindisi.



The second injury was to a member of the Italian military involved in the rescue operation, coastguard admiral Giovanni Pettorino said.

The Greek shipping minister, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, said bad weather, with winds that at one point had reached 55mph (88km/h) earlier, had hampered attempts to reach the Norman Atlantic.

He told reporters that the Italian-led operation was “ one of the most complicated rescue operations that we have ever done”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Greek authorities making ‘superhuman effort’ to rescue passengers on burning ferry.

An Italian air force helicopter pilot said smoke was invading the helicopter cabin, making rescue even more challenging.



“With the wind, smoke entered into the helicopter cabin, acrid smoke,” Major Antonio Laneve told Italian state TV. Some of those they were trying to rescue were very frightened of being hoisted up by helicopter given the adverse weather, he said.

Pettorino told Italy’s Sky TG24 TV that two Italian tugs tried to attach themselves to the ferry in the evening, but were frustrated by the thick smoke.

The shipping ministry identified the Greek casualty as Giorgos Doulis, who had been on the ferry with his wife, Theodora.

The Greek maritime ministry said 268 of the passengers were Greek, with the crew made up of 22 Italians and 34 Greeks. The rest of the passengers included 54 Turks, 44 Italians, 22 Albanians, 18 Germans as well as Swiss, French, Russian, Austrian, British and Dutch nationals. It was reported that two people on board were Australian dual nationals.



On Sunday night a spokeswoman for the UK Foreign Office said: “A number of British nationals were on board. We believe some have now been rescued, but the rescue operation is ongoing.”

Among those waiting to be rescued was British showjumper Nick Channing Williams, who is based in Greece. It was earlier reported that he had been airlifted to safety along with his fiancee, Regina Theoffili, but his family said Italian officials had informed them otherwise.

Channing Williams’s mother, Dotty, from Berkshire, said it had been a frustrating wait for news. She said: “We are of course pleased that Regina is off [the boat], but we can’t get any information. We have been up the whole night trying to phone people and trying to find out exactly what is happening.

“I had told people they had both been airflifted and were fine and now that’s not the case. A lot of what we’re hearing is hearsay, we don’t really know.”

Susan Daltas said her daughter Mia, a British national, and two granddaughters had been rescued. “I’ve heard recently from Marcus, our son-in-law, who kept the phone, that they’ve been airlifted to safety – the two little girls and Mia. But he’s still on the ferry, as far as we understand,” Daltas told the BBC on Sunday night.

She said her youngest granddaughter had been taken to a mainland hospital. “She was suffering from hypothermia because they didn’t even manage to get a coat out of the cabin before they had to go on deck. But apparently she’s now sleeping,” she said.

Of her son-in-law, Mrs Daltas said: “He was shaken, obviously, but I think he’d been staying strong for the family, and the minute they were safe he went a bit wobbly. It’s just cold, and he said his mobile was soaking wet because they had to keep moving around the boat to get away from the fire. So it’s obviously not pleasant.”

A passenger interviewed by Greek Skai TV after she was rescued from the ferry said that at 6.30am she had noticed a “strange smell in the cabin”, but heard no alarm until much later.

Carlo Visentini, the chief executive of the Visenti Group which owns the boat, said the vessel underwent checks on 19 December in Patras and the minor flaws revealed had been addressed, including a problem with a fire door.

“This was immediately repaired to the satisfaction of the inspectors,” he said.