ABANDONED AT SEA.

Wairarapa Age, 18 May 1932, Page 5

ABANDONED AT SEA.

MODERN FRENCH MOTOR UNER ON FIRE. SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE FEABED. MANY PASSENGERS RESCUED 1 . ADEN, May 16. The latest Messageries Maritimes liner, a motor vessel, Georges Philippar, 16,990 tons, bound for Marseilles from China, is afire five miles from Cape Guardafui. Six hundred passengers abandoned ship, three being badly burnt. The Hakone Mani, hurrying to the scene, passed an empty lifeboat. The loss of life is not yet known. The Otranto and Kaiser-i-Hind are racing to pick up passengers. The Liverpool vessels Mahsud and Contractor and the Russian naptha ship Sovietskaia have already arrived. The abandoned hulk of the Georges Philippar had by sunset drifted 20 miles north of Cape Guardafui, with the water hissing in steam from her blistering sides. It cannot yet be said whether the entire company was saved, though it is hoped that they will bo found to be distributed among the rescuing vessels. Two British steamers, the Contractor and Mahsud, are hastening to port with 129 and 134 survivors aboard respectively. The Philippar’s commander, Captain Vicq, and four hundred others are believed to bo aboard the Russian tanker Sovietskaia, whose wireless operators are tongue-tied by difference of language and unable to communicate details. The Mahsud wirelessed that a woman passenger had succumbed to burns and been buried at sea. The steamer Hakone Mani encountered an empty lifeboat, indicating that the Philippar’s company had taken to the boats before the arrival of the other ships, some of which are said to have picked up 300 from lifeboats and rafts adrift in a calm sea, which facilitated the rescue work. The outbreak was discovered amidships before daybreak, but distress signals were withheld because Captain Vicq believed that Aden could be reached before the flames were out of control. Their fierce headway, however, fed by the inflammable paintwork fittings of the luxury liner, created a desperate situation. The first SOS was sent out at 5.54 a.m. The Contractor, Mahsud and Sovietskaia, all in the neighbourhood, exerted every ounce of power, and used their wireless to announce their approach, which allayed any tendency to panic. They arrived in the scene at breakfast time, and at onee devoted themselves to the work of rescue. The Philippar, launched in 1930, cost a million sterling to build. She was known as the unlucky liner ever since she took fire while being built. This was her maiden voyage. She was built to replace the Paul Leeat, destroyed by fire in 1928. The disaster occurred at almost the same spot where the French liner Asia took fire while carrying pilgrims to Mecca in 1930. OVER HUNDRED MISSING. ALL SURVIVORS BEING TAKEN TO ADEN. (Received Tuesday, 9.35 p.m.) LONDON, May 17. A wireless message from the Kaiser-i-Hind states that all the passengers and crew are being taken to Aden, thus suggesting that casualties are not known. However, the Philippar carried five hundred passengers and about three hundred of a crew. Only 663 have been saved. TRAPPED IN CABINS. MANY FIRST-CLASS PASSENGERS. CAUSE OF FIRE. (Received This Day, 0.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 17. Further details shows that the Philippar is still ablaze, with a fifteen degrees list to port. The latest reports show that 698 of the passengers and crew have been saved. The fate of the remaining two hundred is a mystery, but possibly some are aboard additional rescue ships. Captain Owen, of the Contractor, sent a wireless message stating that he reached the Philippar three hours after seeing the fire on the honzan 35 miles distant. Hundreds of F'eople were on the poop and forecastle , 1 launehc<l boats and rescued 129, ’he stated. “I learned that many first-class passengers were trapped in their cabins. A French engineer told me that the fire began in an empty cabin de luxe through a short circuit and travelled rapidly through the staterooms. The survivors in their nightclothes lost everything.” The Contractor is due at Aden to-day. The search for the survivors continues.