Corfu, Greece:
Shocked and sleep deprived, passengers rescued from a Greece-Italy ferry that caught fire off the island of Corfu said on Saturday they were relieved to be alive, though some feared for their livelihoods after losing trucks and loads.
More than 24 hours since the fire broke out early Friday, rescue teams were still looking for 12 missing people, some of whom were trapped inside the ship, as firefighters struggled to contain the flames on the ship several kilometers off the coast of Corfu.
“We envisioned death,” Danilo Carlucci told Reuters at a hotel in Corfu, where dozens of rescued passengers, including families with children and babies, were being accommodated.
Many of the ship’s passengers, including Carlucci, owned trucks or drivers who transported goods, from plastic cups to carpets, between Greece and Italy or other European countries.
The nine-hour journey from Igoumenitsa, a port in western Greece, to the Italian port of Brindisi was part of their weekly routine.
Truck owner Massimo Averna said he was asleep when crew members knocked on his cabin door at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) and the passengers yelled to get off the ship.
“We got dressed and immediately went across the bridge,” Averna said, adding that they had seen crew members trying to put out the fire as they reached the deck.
Averna had taken the ferry for the first time since purchasing a new €200,000 truck to transport thermo pellets from Athens to Italy. He had a picture of it on his cell phone.
British passenger David Waller, 58, said he had left all his personal belongings behind as he ran for the lifeboats in the dark.
“I didn’t know what was happening. You were on a boat… it was pitch dark, so you didn’t know where you were… It was terrifying,” Waller said.
Sixteen-year-old Valentino Turlakov said it was “a really scary night that I will never forget in my life”.
Many of the 280 rescued passengers said they hoped rescuers could get the 12 missing passengers from Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Lithuania to safety.
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