Ship With 1,300 Sinks In Red Sea

[Shawnski]

An Egyptian passenger ferry carrying around 1,300 people, mostly Egyptian workers returning from Saudi Arabia, has sunk in the Red Sea.

Coast Guard vessels have pulled dozens of bodies from the water and rescued 100 survivors from lifeboats, officials said.

The 35-year-old ship Al Salam Boccaccio 98 went down 40 miles off the Egyptian port of Hurghada between midnight and 2am as most of the passengers were sleeping, plunging them into waters whose temperatures average in the upper 60s Fahrenheit (around 19 Celsius) in February.

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

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=176692006

Some reports have the passenger count on board as high as 1400. Very sad.


Update,

The ferry carried 1,310 passengers and a crew of 104, and was in good condition, Transportation Minister Mohamed Mansour told MENA. The ferry was able to accommodate 1,487 passengers, according to the Web site of El-Salam Maritime Transport, which says it is the biggest private shipping company in Egypt.

Among the passengers were 1,158 Egyptians, 99 Saudis, six Syrians, four Palestinians, a Canadian, one person from the United Arab Emirates, a Yemeni, an Omani and one person from Sudan, the Safaga port spokesman said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...4&refer=europe