ATHENS—Heavy rain, hail and gale-force winds buffeted a ferry that caught fire on Sunday off the west coast of Greece and hampered the huge rescue operation working to save the 478 people on board.
By midnight Athens time, one fatality had been reported, while 175 of those aboard the car ferry had been rescued, Greek government officials said.
The Italian-flagged ferry, named Norman Atlantic, had been traveling from the Greek city of Igoumenitsa to the Italian port of Ancona with 422 passengers and 56 crew members. The fire broke out around four in the morning in the ferry’s parking area, which held more than 200 cars.
Many passengers, who were in their cabins asleep when the fire alarms sounded, were forced to crowd onto the top deck throughout the day to get away from the blaze. Billowing smoke caused breathing problems.
Passenger Giorgos Stiliaras told Greek Mega TV that passengers were having trouble breathing with all the smoke. “We are outside, we are very cold, the ship is full of smoke,” he said by telephone, according to the Associated Press. “The boat is still burning, the floors are boiling.” He recalled people being awakened by “the smell of burning plastic,” the AP reported.
The passengers were mostly from Greece, but also came from Turkey, Albania, Italy, Germany and Austria. Many details of the days events were described by passengers calling from the ferry to Greek television stations.
A passenger named Nikos Papatheodosiou told the Greek TV station Mega at one point in the day: “The fire is still on and the ship is listing. All children have been evacuated. We are being towed at a very low speed but we don’t know where.”
Waves reaching 16 feet pounded the ferry, preventing vessels in the area from getting close enough to rescue passengers. Helicopters and planes, coast guard and commercial vessels were involved in the operation, which was being coordinated by Greek, Italian and Albanian authorities and taking place some 45 miles off the Greek island of Corfu.
After dark, four helicopters continued a painstaking process of rescuing a few passengers at a time and carrying them to other boats nearby, according to officials of the Greek merchant marine. Although such lifts are more difficult at night, the helicopters can operate in low light conditions.
About 10 vessels were located near the ferry to support the airlift operations.
“It is going to be a long hard night—a night where we hope that everything will go well, that we will manage to save all of the passengers and the crew,” said Greek Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.
He said the fire had been brought under control. An initial attempt to tow the ferry failed after the cables tied to it snapped.
Italian authorities still plan to tow the ferry to an Italian port, Greek officials said, though it wasn’t immediately clear where exactly the ferry would be taken.
An Italian Air Force helicopter pilot said smoke was invading the helicopter cabin, making rescue even more challenging, according to the Associated Press. “With the wind, smoke entered into the helicopter cabin, acrid smoke,” Maj. Antonio Laneve told Italian state TV. Some of those the helicopters were trying to rescue were very frightened of being hoisted up, given the adverse weather, he said.
Authorities said nine of those evacuated were taken to the Italian town of Lecce, the AP reported. Of those, three children and a pregnant woman were being treated for hypothermia, and Dr. Raffaele Montinaro said the children were in “excellent” condition, and emergency room doctor Antonio Palumbo said the mother’s condition was also good, according to the AP report.
The Italian Navy said the man who died and his injured wife were taken by helicopter to the southern Italian city of Brindisi, AP reported. It was unclear how the death and injury occurred, but the Greek Coast Guard said the pair—both Greek passengers—were found in a lifeboat rescue chute, the AP said.
The second injury was to a member of the Italian military involved in the rescue operation, Coast Guard Admiral Giovanni Pettorino said.
