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February 4, 2006

Egypt: Tragedy As Ship Carrying Muslim Pilgrims Sinks

We reported on the sinking of a passenger ferry in the Suez Canal on October 17, 2005. Then, the ship the MV Pride of Al Salam 95 collided with another boat and slowly sank, allowing the majority of its passengers to be rescued. Only two people died in that incident, from among 1350 pilgrims returning from Haj.

Now, a similar event has happened, but the loss of life is high, estimated as probably 900 people drowned. The ferry the MV AL Salam Boccaccio 98, which is owned by the same comapany as the Pride of Al Salam 95, Elsala Maritime, disappeared off radar screens without warning late on Thursday night, in the Red Sea. There were close to 1300 people on board.

Yahoo News was one of the first to report the disappearance of the Al Salam Boccaccio, stating that about 180 people in lifeboats had been rescued. According to BBC World Service, 200 in 5 lifeboats were saved, but dozens of dead bodies so far have been recovered from the water.

The ferry (pictured above) was 35 years old, and today's Telegraph states that extra decks had been built onto the ship, to accommodate more ferry passengers. Stormy weather is now seen as the possible reason for the boat's sinking, and the Telegraph notes that such extra decks make a ship vulnerable in bad weather.

At first there was a fear that terrorists had attacked the ship, but those fears have been dismissed. Most of the passengers were Egyptian workers and pilgrims returning from the Haj at Mecca. The boat is thought to have sank 40 miles from the Egyptian port of Hurghada. Now investigators are looking into the possibility that there may not have been enough lifeboats provided. It is unknown if passengers had access to life jackets, and the waters are cold enough at this time to cause a person to die of hypothermic shock within hours.

Where the boat sank, the waters are up to 3,000 feet deep. Most passengers would have been sleeping at the time of the boat's sinking, between 12 midnight and 2 am.

There are questions which need to be asked of Elsala Maritime. For one boat to be lost in a collision event is one thing. To lose a second boat in less than just over 3 months is more than careless. Both ships were more than thirty years old. Registered in Panama, the Boccaccio was formerly an Italian vessel sold off in 1998.

The UK MInistry of Defence said that their coordination centre at RAF Kinloss in Scotland had picked up a distress signal before midnight on Thursday, and had alerted the Egyptian authorities.

This is a truly terrible disaster, and sad that perhaps another 900 casualties will be added to the 345 lives lost at the "stoning of the devil" ceremony last month.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 4, 2006 7:35 AM

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