Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

No SOS was sent from Egyptian ship crossing Red Sea from Saudi Arabia

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 8:26 a.m. ET Feb. 3, 2006
CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian ferry carrying around 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea overnight and while 12 people have been rescued, dozens of bodies were recovered and fears are that hundreds perished.

“Dozens of bodies were picked up from the sea ... they were from the ferry,” a police source at the port of Safaga said.

The 35-year-old ship, the Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98, sank 40 miles off the Egyptian port of Hurghada.

The cause was not immediately known, but there were high winds and a sandstorm overnight on Saudi Arabia’s west coast, where the ship departed from Thursday evening.

Ayman al-Kaffas, a spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in London, told the BBC that “a massive search and rescue effort” was under way, and confirmed that “dozens of bodies of victims” had been pulled from the water.


Other ships, among them a British warship, and Egypt's Coast Guard raced to the scene, while helicopters looked for survivors from the air.

Officials said the ferry met safety requirements and that the number of passengers on board was less than the capacity.

The agent for the ship in Saudi Arabia, Farid al-Douadi, said the vessel was in good condition, and that the passengers were mostly Egyptians but included Saudis, Sudanese and other nationalities.

Marzouk said the ship — built in 1971 and renovated in 1990 in an Egyptian shipyard — was carrying 1,318 people, including a crew of 96. It's capacity is more than 1,400.

Vanished from radar
The ship disappeared from radar screens shortly after sailing from the western Saudi port of Dubah at 7 p.m. local time on Thursday night, maritime officials in Suez said.

Coastal stations did not receive any SOS message from the crew, said Adel Shukri, the head of administration at el-Salaam Maritime Transport Company, which owns the ferry.

The ship was due in at Egypt's port of Safaga at 3 a.m. local time, the officials added.

Dubah and Safaga lie virtually opposite each other at the northern end of the Red Sea, which is an extremely busy sea route. In addition to east-west traffic between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, there is north-south traffic through the Suez Canal and to and from the Israeli and Jordanian ports of Eilat and Aqaba.

Mostly workers returning home?
Initial reports said some of the passengers may have been Muslim pilgrims returning from the hajj, which ended nearly a month ago. But the Saudi port of Dubah is known more as a transit point for workers than pilgrims, who mostly leave through Jiddah, further south.

Egyptian workers often take ships from Saudi Arabia back home across the Red Sea.

A ship owned by the same company collided with a cargo ship at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal in October, causing a stampede among passengers trying to escape the sinking ship. Two people were killed and 40 injured.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.



WOW! How does a ship just sink with NO SOS?? I just don't understand that.
Myheart breaks for all the families.

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Saw it this morning very sad. They said something about them being very top heavy.

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Just saw this a little while ago

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

It just baffles me though, how can there be no SOS whatsoever?
What could have happened to a ship that would make it sink soo fast that the capt. couldnt get to the bridge and order the signal?

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

This was very upsetting -- I was in Egypt exactly one year ago... Those poor families....

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

I cannot believe that this happened this way in today's day and age... What a horror!

Re: Ferry with 1,300 sinks, bodies found

The lack of an SOS is odd to me. It makes me wonder if maybe there was some kind of sabotage? It also reminds me of that EgyptAir flight from several years ago. The pilot deliberately crashed that plane into the ocean. Maybe someone did something to cause it to sink?

Just speculating- the whole thing is odd and really sad.