GREEK FERRY SINKS IN VIOLENT STORM

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 17

GREEK FERRY SINKS IN VIOLENT STORM

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ATHENS, December 8. A Greek passenger ship, Iraklion, with 282 persons aboard sank in a violent storm in the Aegean Sea today. Fifteen surivors are reported to have been saved. Others have been sighted.

The Greek Government declared a state of national emergency and mourning and ordered an immediate investigation.

The ship sank between the island of Crete and Piraeus, the port of Athens, the Merchant Marine Ministry announced. The Ministry said an aircraft sent in search of the ship “has located floating wreckage from the ship and

that survivors were signalling to the plane.” The Ministry said the ship sank about 12 miles northeast of Andimilios island, about half way between Crete and Athens. Spokesmen said the wreckage and survivors were first sighted by Greek Royal Air Force planes. Observers

aboard the aircraft said they could see survivors waving at them from life rafts below.

They were clinging desperately to three rafts among a litter of floating wreckage. Near them a car bobbed about in the rough sea. The planes dipped overhead and dropped life jackets, rubber boats and medical supplies. The area was littered with floating objects from the sunken ship, the Ministry said. Although no cause for the sinking was reported, there was a storm in the area at the time. Within a half an hour of the ferry’s distress call at 2.5 a.m., local time, a search ship reached the scene about 12 miles north-east of the island of Andimilios. The ship already had gone down. Waves were high and gale force winds swept the surface

at the time. It was believed that heavy seas had damaged the hull of the 17-year-old ship.