Hopes fade for the missing after Egypt ferry sink
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-04 16:01

Rescue boats have picked up 435 survivors from the Egyptian ferry that sank in the Red Sea after a fire on board, police in Safaga port said Saturday. Most of the ship's 1,400 passengers and crew are feared lost.

A handout shows the Egyptian ferry Al Salam 98 which sank in the Red Sea February 3, 2006. [Reuters]

Transport Ministry spokesman Mohammed Amin said there were 327 survivors so far. The discrepancy in survivor tolls could not be immediately reconciled.

Investigators were still working to determine the fire's connection to the sinking, the minister, Mohammed Lutfy Mansour, told reporters. He described the fire as "small" and said there was no explosion on the vessel, which went down before dawn on Friday.

Nearly 140 survivors were brought to the Egyptian port of Hurghada before dawn Saturday -- the first significant group to come to shore. They walked off a rescue ship down a ramp, some of them barefoot and shivering, wrapped in blankets, and were immediately put on buses for the hospital. Several were brought on stretchers, but it could be seen that they were alive.

Many said the fire began early in the trip -- between 90 minutes or 2 1/1 hours after departure according to various accounts -- but the ship kept going and the fire burned for hours. Their accounts varied on the location of the fire, with some mentioning a storeroom or engine room.

"They decided to keep going. It's negligence," one survivor, Nabil Zikry, said before he was moved along by police, who tried to keep the survivors from talking to journalists.

"It was like the Titanic on fire," another one shouted.

Ahmed Elew, an Egyptian in his 20s, said he went to the ship's crew to report the fire and they told him to help with the water hoses to put it out. At one point there was an explosion, he said.

When the ship began sinking, Elew said he jumped into the water and swam for several hours. He said he saw one lifeboat overturn because it was overloaded with people. He eventually got into another lifeboat. "Around me people were dying and sinking," he said.

"Who is responsible for this?" he said. "Somebody did not do their job right. These people must be held accountable."

Several survivors shouted to journalists their anger over slow rescue efforts. "They left us in the water for 24 hours. A helicopter came above us and circled, we would signal and they ignored us," one man shouted. "Our lives are the cheapest in the world," another said.