Red Sea tragedy may have claimed 1,000 lives

Rescue have picked up 435 survivors from the Egyptian ferry that caught fire and sank in the Red Sea, police said yesterday as their officers struggled to hold back hundreds of people trying to push their way into this port to get information about their loved ones among 1,400 passengers and crew.

"No one is telling us anything," said Shaaban el-Qott, from the southern city of Qena, who was furious after waiting all night for news of his cousin. "All I want to know [is] if he's dead or alive."

Referring the president, el-Qott added: "May God destroy Hosni Mubarak."

A hysterical woman banged on an iron gate to the port, where survivors from the Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 ferry were being brought ashore.

The port officials were not distributing lists of survivor names to the crowd outside, who repeatedly tried to break through a line of helmeted police with sticks.

The ship sank in the dark hours of Friday morning while ferrying people and cars between the Saudi port of Dubah and Safaga. Survivors said a fire broke out and there were explosions. The vessel apparently sank suddenly as no distress signal was received.

Transport Mohammed Lutfy Mansour told reporters that investigators were trying to determine whether the fire, which he described as "small," led to the sinking.

A group of nearly 140 survivors came ashore at Hurghada shortly before dawn. Wrapped in blankets, they walked down a rescue ship's ramp, some of them barefoot and shivering, and boarded buses for the hospital. Some lay on stretchers.

Many said the fire began about 90 minutes after departure, but the ship kept going. Their accounts varied on the fire's location, with some saying it was in a storeroom or the engine room.

"They decided to keep going. It's negligence," one survivor, Nabil Zikry, said before he was moved along by police, who tried to keep the survivors from talking to journalists.

"It was like the Titanic on fire," another shouted.

A spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the ferry did not have enough lifeboats, and questions were raised about the safety of the 35-year-old, refitted ship that was weighed down with 220 cars as well as the passengers.

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Red Sea ferry disaster highlights safety issues