1100 Saved From Blazing Migrant Ship

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28551, 2 April 1958, Page 13

1100 Saved From Blazing Migrant Ship

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 1. The burned out and abandoned hulk of a Norwegian migrant ship, Skaubryn, was drifting in the Indian Ocean today while the Ellerman liner City of Sydney, steamed towards Aden with more than 1100 survivors from her on board. The story of the ocean drama was told in several radio messages from the 7000-ton British ship picked up by the Dutch coastal radio of Scheveningen. Soon after midnight a relayed message from the City of Sydney, homeward bound from Colombo, said that she had picked up more than 1100 persons from the burning Skaubryn (9876 tons). The Skaubryn was bound for Australia with a large contingent of migrants—mainly Germans, but including some Scandinavians, British and Maltese.

Some hours later another message from the City of Sydney said that the Skaubryn had been abandoned by 3.30 a.m. G.M.T. The British ship was heading foi Aden with the rescued survivors.

This message said that one person had been killed in the fire. It said that the Skaubryn was now a drifting wreck with a pall of smoke still rising, and that an Italian ship was remaining in the vicinity. This ship is believed to be the 14,687-ton Roma, which left Colombo for Genoa on March 29. Another British ship, the 8058 tons Silverlake, had also turned to the rescue, but the City of Sydney was ahead of her. In Bonn, an Australian Embassy official said that the Skaubryn’s passengers included 736 migrants, who had paid from about £lB each for their passages, many cf them subsidised. Lloyd’s agency in Bombay reported that the Royal Navy’s East Indies station was sending a naval vessel, which was expected to reach the stricken liner early this morning.