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At Least 5 Die in Italian Ferry Fire At Least 10 Die in Italian Ferry Fire
(about 5 hours later)
VERBANIA, Italy — At least five people died after a ferry caught fire on Sunday en route to Italy from Greece, officials from both countries announced on Monday, although Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy said that all of the surviving passengers and most of the crew had been rescued. VERBANIA, Italy — At least 10 people died after a ferry caught fire on Sunday en route to Italy from Greece, Italian officials said Monday, but concerns rose that some passengers might still be missing even after the evacuation was completed.
Rescue teams worked through the night and the morning on Monday to assist those stranded on the ferry, which was carrying 422 passengers and 56 crew members. The commander of the ferry and four officials from the Italian Navy remain on the vessel. Ships loaded with visibly relieved survivors began to arrive on Italian shores. Italian, Greek and Albanian rescue workers had accounted for 427 people as of Monday afternoon, the authorities said. However, that number fell short of the 478 passengers and crew listed on the original ferry manifest. Adding to the confusion, some of the passengers rescued from the burning ferry were not listed on the manifest at all, and may have been aboard the ship illegally.
Speaking to reporters at an end-of-year news conference, Mr. Renzi said that five bodies had been retrieved by operators, and he offered his condolences to the victims’ families. “We hope that no other people are missing,” Maurizio Lupi, Italy’s transportation minister, told a news conference in Rome on Monday.
He also thanked Italian rescue workers for their “passion and tenaciousness,” and he said that their efforts in gale-force winds and rough seas had “avoided a massacre.” It would be “premature” to tally how many people are missing, he added, noting that the ferry had made a stop in Greece before sailing for Italy and that some passengers might have gotten off there, and that some passengers may have been no-shows.
Their work, he said, “makes us proud to be Italian.” Italian officials said that only after the names of the survivors had been checked against a definitive manifest of the passengers onboard would it be possible to effectively determine whether others were still missing. Italian officials said there had been Greek, Turkish, Albanian, Italian, German, Swiss and other nationals on board.
Despite high winds, helicopters managed to retrieve all of the passengers by early Monday afternoon, and they began transporting the crew members to nearby vessels, including two navy ships. The presence of the military vessels, equipped with helicopter pads, sped up rescue efforts. All the crew members of the ferry — of both Greek and Italian nationality — were accounted for.
Passengers were brought to various Italian ports, and those with hypothermia or smoke inhalation were taken to hospitals. Italian officials spoke proudly of the rescue efforts, which evolved over some 30 hours and involved dozens of vessels, helicopters and planes, from Italy as well as Greece and Albania.
Prosecutors in the southern Italian port of Bari have opened a criminal investigation into the accident. They began interviewing some of the passengers who had arrived earlier Monday morning on a container ship, where they had been transferred from the ferry. Adm. Giuseppe De Giorgi, the Italian Navy’s chief of staff, described the operation as one of the largest and most dramatic rescue missions Italy had ever undertaken, involving helicopters battling gale-force winds to pluck passengers to safety while the ship continued to burn, spewing thick black smoke.
Rescue workers will also be questioned as prosecutors seek to determine the cause of the fire and whether negligence was a contributing factor. A separate investigation was opened in Brindisi, Italy. The ship’s commander, Argilio Giacomazzi, was the last to leave the vessel, Italian officials said. The gesture, in keeping with maritime tradition, caught the attention of Italians still smarting from another maritime disaster: that of the Costa Concordia, which sank off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012, killing 32 people.
The Italian news media reported that the ship had not fully passed a recent inspection this month, but the Italian owner of the ship said that the paperwork was in order. “Like all serious commanders, he is the last to leave the ship,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said of the captain, a veiled slight to the Concordia’s captain, who abandoned his vessel well before others had reached safety.
Offering his condolences to the families of the victims, whose identities have not been made public, Mr. Renzi praised Italian rescue workers for their “passion and tenaciousness,” which he said “avoided a massacre.” Their work “makes us proud to be Italian,” he said during an end-of-year news conference.
Alongside the praise, however, came polemics. Prosecutors in the Italian port cities of Bari and Brindisi opened separate investigations into the cause of the fire and to determine whether negligence was a contributing factor. The transportation ministry will also carry out an investigation, starting with the ship’s black box, Italian officials said.
Some passengers interviewed on Italian television complained about disorganization and chaos on board after the fire got out of control. One passenger said freezing passengers had been left to their own devices, and that that the lifeboats hadn’t worked.
“The crew weren’t able to, they had to stay there, they weren’t equipped to know how to abandon ship,” said one unidentified man interviewed by television reporters in Bari. He said that several people had fallen into the water in the dark.
Survivors were taken by ship to two Italian ports, while other ships were directed to Greece, Croatia and Malta, an Italian official said. Injured passengers — some suffering from hypothermia or smoke inhalation — were taken directly to hospitals on the Italian mainland by helicopter.
While the cause of the fire remained unclear, Italian news media reported that the ship had not passed an inspection in Greece this month.
But an Italian admiral said Monday that the repairs had been made after the inspection and that the ship was seaworthy when it set sail on Sunday.