Ferry Passengers Recount Chaos: No Fire Alarm, Just Smoke
BARI,
Italy — There were no fire alarms at first, no knocks on the door from
the crew, just thick, acrid smoke filling cabins and waking passengers
on the overnight ferry from Greece to Italy.
In
the chaos that followed, passengers sought safety from the flames on
deck, only to be doused by cold rain and water hoses while heat from the
fire below burned their feet.
Pushing and shoving broke out, and passengers came to blows over coveted slots on lifeboats and helicopter baskets.
"Everyone
there was trampling on each other to get onto the helicopter," Greek
truck driver Christos Perlis told The Associated Press by telephone from
one of the rescue vessels summoned after the Italian-flagged ferry
caught fire off Albania early Sunday.
"The
jungle law prevailed," said Greek passenger Irene Varsioti. "There was
no queue or order. No respect was shown for children."
Italian
and Greek helicopter rescue crews Monday evacuated the last of the
known survivors aboard the vessel, bringing the number rescued to 427.
But
the death toll climbed to at least 10, and the search in the Adriatic
Sea continued amid serious discrepancies in the ship's manifest, which
contained 478 names.
"We cannot say how many people may be missing," Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said at an evening news conference.
Italian
officials said the names on the manifest may have represented just
reservations, not actual passengers who boarded. Also, Italian navy Adm.
Giovanni Pettorino said 80 of those rescued weren't on the list at all,
giving credence to suggestions from the Italian premier that the ferry
may have been carrying a number of illegal migrants trying to reach
Italy.
The
blaze broke out on the car deck of the Norman Atlantic while the ferry
was traveling from the Greek port of Patras to Ancona in Italy. The
cause of the fire was under investigation.
The
Italian military congratulated itself for a remarkable around-the-clock
rescue operation in horrendous weather: 40 knot (75 kph; 46 mph) winds,
high seas, choking smoke and the dark of the Adriatic night.
Hundreds
of passengers, crew members and two dogs were plucked from the
rain-soaked ferry decks in helicopter baskets as the fire blazed below.
Some
suffered hypothermia, others mild carbon monoxide poisoning, but the
first big group to reach land — 49 people who came ashore in Bari just
after dawn Monday — walked off their rescue ship on their own, exhausted
and draped in blankets to ward off the cold.
Navy
Adm. Giuseppe De Giorgi hailed the Italian ferry captain, Argilio
Giacomazzi, for having stayed on board to see the evacuation through, in
striking contrast to the skipper in Italy's last maritime disaster.
Capt. Francesco Schettino is on trial on charges of manslaughter and
leaving the ship early in the 2012 wreck of the Costa Concordia, in
which 32 people were killed.
"As
an old seaman, I offer my deferential salute to the ship captain for
having done his job with great dignity and competence," De Giorgi said.
"He was last off, as a captain should be."
Giacomazzi's daughter, Giulia, said her father was "very precise and very careful" about his work.
"The classic story of the sea," she told AP from the family's home in La Spezia. "The captain is the last to leave the ship."
Despite
the praise, passengers said the scene aboard the ship was chaos, with
virtually no direction coming from the mostly Italian crew. Several said
that they knew to get out of their cabins only because other passengers
banged on their doors or because they couldn't breathe from the smoke.
"There
was no alarm — this was the absolute tragedy," Dimitra Theodossiou, a
Greek soprano, told Italy's La Repubblica. "They didn't knock. They
didn't advise us. We woke from smoke that entered in the room."
Perlis,
the Greek truck driver, described the rescue scene as "a chaos, a
panic," hampered by passengers whose feet were burning from the fire
underneath them. "And from the feet up we were soaked," he said.
When rescue helicopters arrived, Perlis said, passengers began to clamber for position.
"First
children, then women and then men. But the men, they started hitting us
so they could get on first. They didn't take into consideration the
women or the children, nothing," Perlis said. He said he reached safety
after jumping in a helicopter basket carrying a girl.
British
show-jumper Nick Channing-Williams told Sky News that he heard an alarm
at 5 a.m. — well after the flames were under way. Passengers said that
eventually an order went out for passengers to get their life vests and
come to the upper decks.
"When we got out on deck, the flames were huge and all the cars were on fire," he said.
"The
fire was basically cooking everybody's feet. ... People just panicked,"
he added. "When the flames are licking up the side of the boat and
there's no sign of help ... you do feel somewhat helpless."
A
Turkish passenger, Aylin Akamac, told the state-run Anadolu Agency: "We
were soaked from the water they doused to extinguish the fire. Our feet
froze. People were forced to move closer to the fire to keep warm. We
waited outside for hours."
Late
Monday, Italy's transport ministry sequestered the ferry, saying
Italian and Albanian authorities would decide which port to bring it to
amid dueling jurisdictions over any criminal or civil liability for the
disaster.
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