Paraffin blamed for ferry fire

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 15

Paraffin blamed for ferry fire

(N.Z.P.A.-R»uter—Copvright)

BRINDISI (Italy), September 2. The fire on the Greek car ferry Heleanna was apparently started by paraffin catching alight in the ship’s kitchens, informed sources said today.

The sources also said after Brindisi Deputy Public Prosecutor (Dr Aldo Perrone) visited the burn-out ferry yesterday that he noted cabins were divided only by plastic and wood partitions which could not act as tiresome 24 persons died after the Heleanna was swept by fire last Sunday in the Adriatic and more than 1100 passengers were forced to abandon ship. Italian authorities then ordered the vessel arrested. The ferry’s master, Demetrios Antipas, has been gaoled and charged with multiple manslaughter. The sources said the fire was not set off by an explod-

ing liquid gas container, as suggested earlier. An Italian merchant navy ministry representative who accompanied Dr Perrone to the Helleanna yesterday said there was no sign of any explosion in the kitchens. Meanwhile, the Efthimiades shipping company, owner of the burnt-out Heleanna, has ordered all its other ships not to dock at any Italian port, the company’s representative in Ancona, north of Brindisi, said last night. A spokesman for the Italian Paroletti Maritime Agency, which looks after the interests of the Efthimiades company, said that he assumed the Greek line had given the order to avoid any more of its vessels being sequestrated.