He was found at the rear of the ship. One of the passengers of the burning Italian ferry off the Greek island of Corfu was found alive and evacuated from the burning boat, the coast guard told AFP on Sunday.
The 21-year-old said he was from Belarus. “Tell me I’m alive!” “, he shouted to the rescuers, according to the daily Proto Thema. Rescuers who had previously detected his presence were able to return to the ferry to rescue him and evacuate him with a ladder, according to Greek authorities.
Rescuers hope that the passenger rescued on Sunday morning will be able to give information on the other missing persons, who could be prisoners on the ferry, from which thick smoke was still coming out on Sunday morning.
After this discovery, eleven truck drivers are still missing this Sunday. The boat of the Italian company Grimaldi, en route to Brindisi in Italy, caught fire at dawn on Friday, two hours after leaving the Greek port of Igoumenitsa, with 290 people, including 51 crew members, registered at edge.
The inferno fanned by the wind, the sporadic explosions and the infernal temperature rising to more than 500 degrees prevent rescuers from intervening on board the ship, according to the firefighters and the Greek coast guard.
Aided by a helicopter, a frigate and a firefighting vessel, divers and firefighters crisscross the disaster area, hoping to find the missing.
The fire could have started from a truck
In addition to 278 registered people, two illegal Afghan migrants were also rescued, raising fears of more missing, migrants often boarding illegally on ferries linking Greece to Italy.
The investigation by the Greek Maritime Accident Service has only just begun. But the fire could have started from a truck parked in the holds, according to several concordant declarations.
However, several truck drivers reported to ERT on Saturday that they preferred to sleep in their truck than in the crowded cabins of the ferries.
Video. Fire on a ferry off Greece
The missing are all truckers, seven from Bulgaria, three from Greece, one from Lithuania and one from Turkey, the Greek coast guard told AFP.
Once the fire is extinguished, the boat must be towed “to a safe place” to pump fuel and water, in order to avoid any maritime pollution, Greek Minister of the Merchant Navy Giannis Plakiotakis said on Saturday on Skai TV.