Hope stayed high on on Sunday after a passenger was found living aboard a ferry that caught fire off Greece for three days, the coast guard said, but 11 truck drivers are still missing.
Rescuers spotted 21-year-old man on Stern of the damaged vessel while being towed to port.
The ferry was 1.5 miles (about two kilometers) off the northern part of Corfu, the coast guard said.
“Tell me I’m alive”, the truck driver, who said he was from Belarus, told rescuers, according to Proto Thema news website.
Dressed in beige shorts and a black t-shirt, he climbed down a ladder in a lifeboat, from images by iefimerida news website.
“I was in my hut. I went to the lower deck. I heard voices. I didn’t see any others,” the survivor told rescuers.
the news of the man’s survival raised hopes that more lives could be saved.
“There is optimism. Given the fact this man managed to get on the upper deck in these conditions,” coastguard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told Ert television.
He added this first assistance was given to the driver who had to be transferred by ambulance boat to the port of Corfu.
According to fire brigade, 40 firefighters were deployed in the area on Sunday morning at help with rescue efforts.
The fire broke out out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia on Thursday evening as it left Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy, with nearly 300 people a board.
“Corrosive Goods”
Critics have multiplied over conditions on board the vessel, which is believed to have been carrying fuel and “corrosive and dangerous goods”.
Rescuers managed to save 281 passengers on Friday, evacuating them to Corfu, but 12 truck drivers remained missing.
The saved man on sunday was one of those drivers indicated the coast guard.
Authorities initially named the missing as seven from Bulgaria, three from Greece, one from Turkey and one from Lithuania.
On Sunday they said there was a error and the missing Lithuanian was actually the saved man, who came from Belarus.
the drivers It is believed they were sleeping inside their trucks when the fire broke out out.
Olympia carried about 800 cubic meters of fuel and 23 tons of “corrosive dangerous goods”, according to Italy environment ministry, who said on Saturday that a “possible spill” was detected after a flight by an Italian Coast Guard aircraft.
“miserable” conditions
The ship was officially carrying 239 passengers and 51 crew, along with 153 trucks and trailers and 32 passenger vehicles, the Grimaldi company said.
But the coast guard said two of the 280 people rescued were not Afghans on the manifesto, sparking fears that more undocumented passengers could also be missing.
The missing truckers would have slept in their vehicles because the cabins on the ship was overcrowded.
Ilias Gerontidakis, the son of a missing Greek trucker, told Proto Thema online Olympia newspaper was “miserable to all points sight of view.”
“There were bed bugs, it was dirty, there was no security system,” he said while waiting at the port for news.
“There were 150 trucks inside. Normally there should have 70 to 75 cabins, but it only has 50. They force us sleep at four people in a shack,” he said.
“My fatheraccording to whaton told me, I slept in the truck.”
the news of the rescue of the Belarusian has spread to his relatives of those who are still missing who wait for news of relatives in The port of Corfu.
Ert showed emotional scenes of a woman carried away after fainting.
the last on board fire in the Adriatic occurred in December 2014 on the Italian ferry Norman Atlantic. Thirteen people deceased in this blaze.
Hope stayed high on on Sunday after a passenger was found living aboard a ferry that caught fire off Greece for three days, the coast guard said, but 11 truck drivers are still missing.
Rescuers spotted 21-year-old man on Stern of the damaged vessel while being towed to port.
The ferry was 1.5 miles (about two kilometers) off the northern part of Corfu, the coast guard said.
“Tell me I’m alive”, the truck driver, who said he was from Belarus, told rescuers, according to Proto Thema news website.
Dressed in beige shorts and a black t-shirt, he climbed down a ladder in a lifeboat, from images by iefimerida news website.
“I was in my hut. I went to the lower deck. I heard voices. I didn’t see any others,” the survivor told rescuers.
the news of the man’s survival raised hopes that more lives could be saved.
“There is optimism. Given the fact this man managed to get on the upper deck in these conditions,” coastguard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told Ert television.
He added this first assistance was given to the driver who had to be transferred by ambulance boat to the port of Corfu.
According to fire brigade, 40 firefighters were deployed in the area on Sunday morning at help with rescue efforts.
The fire broke out out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia on Thursday evening as it left Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy, with nearly 300 people a board.
“Corrosive Goods”
Critics have multiplied over conditions on board the vessel, which is believed to have been carrying fuel and “corrosive and dangerous goods”.
Rescuers managed to save 281 passengers on Friday, evacuating them to Corfu, but 12 truck drivers remained missing.
The saved man on sunday was one of those drivers indicated the coast guard.
Authorities initially named the missing as seven from Bulgaria, three from Greece, one from Turkey and one from Lithuania.
On Sunday they said there was a error and the missing Lithuanian was actually the saved man, who came from Belarus.
the drivers It is believed they were sleeping inside their trucks when the fire broke out out.
Olympia carried about 800 cubic meters of fuel and 23 tons of “corrosive dangerous goods”, according to Italy environment ministry, who said on Saturday that a “possible spill” was detected after a flight by an Italian Coast Guard aircraft.
“miserable” conditions
The ship was officially carrying 239 passengers and 51 crew, along with 153 trucks and trailers and 32 passenger vehicles, the Grimaldi company said.
But the coast guard said two of the 280 people rescued were not Afghans on the manifesto, sparking fears that more undocumented passengers could also be missing.
The missing truckers would have slept in their vehicles because the cabins on the ship was overcrowded.
Ilias Gerontidakis, the son of a missing Greek trucker, told Proto Thema online Olympia newspaper was “miserable to all points sight of view.”
“There were bed bugs, it was dirty, there was no security system,” he said while waiting at the port for news.
“There were 150 trucks inside. Normally there should have 70 to 75 cabins, but it only has 50. They force us sleep at four people in a shack,” he said.
“My fatheraccording to whaton told me, I slept in the truck.”
the news of the rescue of the Belarusian has spread to his relatives of those who are still missing who wait for news of relatives in The port of Corfu.
Ert showed emotional scenes of a woman carried away after fainting.
the last on board fire in the Adriatic occurred in December 2014 on the Italian ferry Norman Atlantic. Thirteen people deceased in this blaze.