NEWS: Cruise Ship Sinks Off Egyptian Coast, 1415 On Board

Originally posted by infinite

Originally posted by picklewalsh
This hould realy be in Other news.

1500 people lives at risk are not "other news"

I did not mean it like that, i ment this is not terror or conspiricy related.

Aljazeera is reporting that it has "disappeared"

its sister ship, the Al Salam 95, sank in the Red Sea in October after a collision with a Cypriot commercial vessel.

Nerdling's view on RORO ships is probably the most likely event, even the experts are talking about this now on Sky. Collision is being ruled out.

Originally posted by picklewalsh

Originally posted by infinite

Originally posted by picklewalsh
This hould realy be in Other news.

1500 people lives at risk are not "other news"

I did not mean it like that, i ment this is not terror or conspiricy related.

In the drop down box next to headline, I highlighted the General News option. Anyways, Nerdlings reasoning seems very logical. I'll bet that this was not terror related. Weather seems to be the likely culprit.

Who knows what made it go down? Ifit was a terrorist attack, low enough in the water it would go down fast. Think how fast the Lusitaia went down when it was torpedoed. If it was a roll on,roll off then a Car bomb could easily be put on it.

Originally posted by Nerdling
Pretty standard for a RORO ship (roll on/roll off). Once the water gets into the main deck it creates an unstable amount of ballast that rolls with the waves. More water pours in and the ship begins to list and drag itself down and will sink quickly as more water pours in. It's possible the water short circuited the comm system.

I was in the Coast Guard Nerdling, and RORO's usually happen in rough weather or icy conditions (if we got into a rough sea with below feezing conditions, everyone, from the capt. down was on deck with baseball bats breaking up ice to prevent a roll over) unless the boat was so overloaded that it was riding way too low, then even moderate swells could sink it by simply washing on deck and forcing it under.....BUT what has the weather been like in that prat of the Red sea?

Mod Edit: Fixed Quote Bpx

[edit on 2/4/06 by FredT]

Latest reports are saying they have recovered at least 12 live passengers, unfortunately dozens have been found dead.

The good part is survivors means they may learn what actually happened.

Last I heard around 100 were rescued, but that still means there are probably like 1300+ dead.

Apparently it was in bad weather, so an accidental sinking due to rough seas is the most likely explanation, unless they find evidence of some type of bomb later.

[edit on 2/3/2006 by djohnsto77]

It was bad weather, and there was an electrical storm directly over them at the time.

Sky were reporting that a distress buoy had been found.

Has anyone else heard the possibility that the ship may have hit a coral reef?

The reason I ask is because that was given as a possiblity on MSNBC.
From what I could gather, ships have been known in the past to hit the reefs that are allegedly located near the shipping lanes.

Yeah, I've heard the same thing, shots. They've been saying that it is a possibility on all of the major news channels, here in the states. They've also said that the ship was well out of the range of the reefs. I wouldn't discount it yet though. Keep in mind that, apparently there have been a lot of conflicting reports as to where the ship actually sunk. We'll just have to wait and see.

Update:

Rescue teams have found 185 dead and 231 survivors so far - but any survivors still in the Red Sea could go into shock as temperatures fell in the already cold waters (19 deg Celsius ~ 60s Fahrenheit)

"Al Salam 98" last had contact with shore at about 10 P.M. (~20:00 GMT) on Thursday evening, which is shortly after the ship left the Saudi port, it disappeared at midnight (~ 5 p.m. Thursday ET) from radar screens

external image

Rescue offers: Egypt has refused the Israel Navy's offer to help rescue survivors of Friday's cruise ship sinking in the Red Sea, Zaka reported - and they initially turned down a British offer to divert a warship to the scene to help out and a U.S. offer to send a P3-Orion maritime naval patrol aircraft to the area. The British craft, HMS Bulwark, then turned around when the offer was rejected.

But meanwhile, they asked for both the Orion and the Bulwark (part of a Dutch-controlled multionational task force, which includes assets from the 5th Fleet and British navy) to be sent. The HMS Bulwark is said to arrive there Saturday evening. Also, Saudi ships were patrolling waters off their shore to hunt for survivors.

Number of people on board: Sky News reported that the number, 1415, exceeded by some 20 percent the maximum number allowed on board.

According to a passengers list obtained by Xinhua - 1,193 Egyptians - 99 Saudis - 6 Syrians - 4 Palestinians - 1 Jordanian - 1 national of the United Arab Emirates - 1 Yemeni - 1 Sudanese 1 Indonesian - 1 Omani - 1 Canadian and 1 Filipino were on board.

(This would be 1,309 passengers + the crew members, so probably there were more people than allowed on that ship)



[edit on 3-2-2006 by Riwka]

Lost At Sea

This is utterly terrible.

May angels protect the survivors, and peace be upon the souls of those who were lost.

I was just checking for the latest updates and came upon this.



I thought ever since the Titanic sunk there was a maritime law that required all boats to carry sufficent life boats

Or are ferries exempt and only require life jackets?

I read something about the fact the a RN ship had initiated rescue ops but then abandoned the attempt. Also read something abt the Egyptian Govt turning down assistance from a USN plane.

Survivors say there was a fire aboard the ship. It started like a small fire which they didn´t take seriously, and then suddenly it "exploded" and came out of control before she sank. Here is a picture of "MS Al Salam Boccaccio 98".


Photo: AP

That's a very interesting development, Hellmut. I had not heard that yet. I'll hark back to my original opinion on saftey standards regarding this new development. A small fire would have been taken a lot more seriously, here in the states.

Fire And Water

Originally posted by ReginalBigsby
A small fire would have been taken a lot more seriously, here in the states.

Perhaps, but maybe this "small fire" wasn't accidental -- especially if it "exploded".

These accounts suggest the very real possibility that perhaps this wasn't an accident.

I'm not saying it was sabotage, but I think it would be irresponsible to rule out foul play without a thorough investigation, especially with so many lives lost.

This fire is not the official story. It was reported by some of the survivors. I´ve seen rumours about a huge wave as well. But I find this fire story the most realistic. Very likely what happened IMO


edit:
here, if you have a translator or understand norwegian. VG: Etterforsker brann pa dodsskipet (in Norwegian...)

[edit on 2006/2/4 by Hellmutt]

Rescue teams have found about 400 survivors and recovered nearly 200 bodies. The rest of the more than 1,400 mainly Egyptian passengers and crew are missing.

Reuters: Red Sea ferry survivors say captain abandoned them

The survivors said a fire broke out below deck shortly after the 35-year-old vessel left the Saudi port of Duba on Thursday evening with 1,272 passengers and a crew of about 100.

The ship began to list but the crew continued to sail out into the Red Sea rather than turn back to the Saudi port, they told reporters in the Egyptian port of Safaga, where the ferry should have landed early on Friday.

Egyptian survivor Shahata Ali said the passengers had told the captain about the fire but he told them not to worry.

"We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left," he added, speaking to Reuters Television.

"The captain was the first to leave and we were surprised to see the boat sinking," added Khaled Hassan, another survivor.

Other survivors also reported that the crew played down the gravity of the situation and withheld lifejackets.

"There was a fire but the crew stopped the people from putting on lifejackets so that it wouldn't cause a panic," said Abdel Raouf Abdel Nabi, one of the survivors.

"There was a blaze down below. The crew said 'Don't worry, we will put it out.' When things got really bad the crew just went off in the lifeboats and left us on board," said Nader Galal Abdel Shafi, another arrival on the same rescue boat.

Shirin Hassan, the head of the maritime section of the Egyptian Ministry of Transport, told state television that the fire seemed to have broken out on one of the vehicles which the ferry was carried on the lower car deck.

Originally posted by Riwka

"We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left," he added, speaking to Reuters Television.
"The captain was the first to leave and we were surprised to see the boat sinking," added Khaled Hassan, another survivor.

How horrible !!!
To leave people who are under your charge to DIE , that is down right despicable /dishonorable. How can that captain ever rest in peace ? How can he ;ive with himself ?

I hope they find this captain and his crew and lock him up for the murder of every one who is lost.
Also with so many offers of help available to them i dont understand why they refused they didnt accept anyone of them especially if so many people were going to die !! I am sure they again succumber to their pride rather than logic. Thus we have a 1400 dead.
Its pride on one side and cowardice on the other. :shk:

[edit on 4-2-2006 by IAF101]