Rescue Operations on Italy Ferry Fire is Trending

The evacuation of passengers on the ferry that caught fire off the coast of Greece is trending. The death toll has risen to seven, Italy's coastguard said on Monday.

The ferry was sailing from Patros in western Greece to Ancona in Italy carrying 478 passengers and more than 200 vehicles when a fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday.

More than 200 people were still trapped on a burning ferry between Italy and Albania on Monday morning, despite Italian, Greek and Albanian crews working in rough, freezing conditions through the night to rescue them. Ships and helicopters fought choppy seas and strong winds in the dark in a race against time to rescue passengers still left aboard the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic. The Italian coastguard said 251 of the 478 people on the ferry had been evacuated by early Monday. 

Italian prosecutors announced on Monday that they had opened a criminal investigation into the fire and would look into whether negligence had played a role.

Passengers described scenes of terror and chaos when the fire broke out as they slept in their cabins.

"They called first on women and children to be evacuated from the ship," Vassiliki Tavrizelou, who was rescued along with her 2-year-old daughter, told The Associated Press.

Dotty Channing-Williams, mother of British ferry passenger Nick Channing-Williams, said she had managed to speak to her son before he and his Greek fiancee were airlifted to safety. She said she had complained to her son that there was no information available for families.

"He said `Well, it's an awful lot worse for us because we're actually standing out here in the pouring rain, and thunder and lightning, and we really just don't know exactly what's going to happen."'

 

Most of those on board were Greek. Greek maritime official Nikos Lagadianos told AP that 234 passengers and 34 crew members were from Greece. 

Others came from Italy, Turkey, Albania, Germany and several other countries. Four British nationals have been rescued from the stricken ferry, according to the UK Foreign Office.

The chief executive of the Visentini group that owns the vessel, Carlo Visentini, said the ferry had passed a recent technical inspection despite a "slight malfunction" in one of the fire doors, Italy's Ansa news agency reports.