The number of deaths from a fire that razed a ferry in the Adriatic rose to 12 yesterday, with 10 of the victims dying as a result of the blaze and two perishing in the rescue operation. Dozens of passengers are still unaccounted for.
It was unclear whether the missing passengers had drowned or otherwise died unnoticed or whether the ill-fated Norman Atlantic’s manifest lists were inaccurate.
Pending the resolution of the issue, the Italian navy kept searching for bodies around the stricken ferry, which remained in waters close to Albania hours after nightfall.
Photo: AFP
The navy yesterday said that two Albanian seamen died from injuries incurred in an accident during the rescue.
The merchant sailors were on a tugboat when cables attaching it to the stricken ferry snapped, the navy said without providing further details.
As survivors described a terrifying ordeal that could easily have claimed more lives, Italian Minister of Transport Maurizio Lupi confirmed that a total of 427 people had been winched to safety by helicopter in 24-hour rescue operation carried out in the teeth of an unusually fierce winter storm.
With the 10 confirmed dead, that left 41 people unaccounted for in comparison to the list of passengers and crew released by the ferry’s Greek operator on Sunday.
Lupi said it was unclear if the discrepancy was due to errors on the passenger list, no-shows at boarding or people getting off at a stopover on the Greek island of Igoumenitsa.
“It is up to the departure port to match up their list and the people [rescued],” Lupi said. “That is why we are continuing our [search] effort: We cannot know what the exact number was.”
Greek Minister of Shipping and the Aegean Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said that the list was “possibly inaccurate” and complained about poor communication with Italy.
“I strongly doubt that all the names on the list are real — we have two persons with the same name, who turned out to be one person,” Varvitsiotis told Mega TV.
None of the statements made by survivors have so far given any indication that as many as 40 passengers may have died, but there was a worrying indication of more bad news when an empty lifeboat washed up in Albania.
Ship captain Argilio Giacomazzi, 62, upheld maritime tradition by ensuring he was the last man off, handing over to Italian navy officers.
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