One thousand feared dead in Egypt ferry disaster

SAFAGA, Egypt, Sunday (AFP) - Close to 1,000 people were feared dead Sunday as chances dwindled of finding many more survivors from an aging Egyptian ferry that caught fire and then sank in the middle of the Red Sea.

Controversy mounted over the safety of the 36-year-old ship, and survivors blamed the captain for refusing to turn around when a fire broke out shortly after the vessel left Saudi Arabia with 1,300 passengers on Thursday night.

Hundreds of relatives gathered in Safaga on hearing news of the ship's sinking, potentially one of the deadliest maritime disasters of recent years. Anger mounted as little information on the fate of loved ones filtered through.

Maritime sources said 378 people from the Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 had been pulled out of the sea alive.

Among them were 29 passengers who were saved by Saudi coast guards and taken back to safety in Duba, the ship's port of departure.

A police official said that 185 bodies had been recovered and that the death toll was expected to soar.

Strong winds and currents hampered the initial phase of the search and rescue operation and chances of spotting more survivors in the cold and shark-infested sea were receding by the minute.

"Two hours after our departure from (the Saudi port of) Duba thick smoke started to come out of the engines," 34-year-old Egyptian Raafat al-Sayyed told AFP.

He said passengers were told to gather on the decks so that crew members could extinguish the blaze as the ship started to list dangerously.

"But the fire continued for a long time, and they (the crew) kept on saying that they were getting it under control," said Kamel Mohammad Abdel Askari, 48, another Egyptian.

The survivors, being treated in the hospital at Hurghada on the Red Sea, said the Panamanian-flagged ferry continued on its voyage, listing to the port side, before going down in less than 10 minutes.

The transport ministry's head of maritime affairs, Shereen Hassan, explained that fire broke out twice on the ship.

In a briefing to President Hosni Mubarak, who was in Hurghada to visit survivors, Hassan gave the chronology of events, which revealed that search and rescue operations were only launched seven hours after the ship sank.

An angry crowd confronted riot police armed with truncheons and plastic shields by throwing stones Saturday. Another group had earlier managed to break the police cordons and rush towards the docks in search of their relatives.