It should be reminded that a fire broke out in the car hold area of the ferry boat early on Sunday morning as it was headed from Patra to Ancona, Italy. It has not yet been determined what caused the fire, but as the tragedy unfolded there were rumors that the blaze began after illegal immigrants lit fires in the garage area for heat. At the time the “Norman Atlantic” was about 45 nautical miles off the northern coast of Corfu.
The Odyssey of the survivors has indeed come to an end, but the agony for many of the families of passengers or crew members who have not been able to contact their own people continues.
The dilemma that officials are facing now stems on the number of civilian and crew member evacuees, which reports claim does not add up to the number (478) in accordance with the passenger list. In fact, neither the Italian and Greek officials agree on the number of missing and rescued. The Italian national TV RAI even claimed that 80 survivors were not even on the passenger list!
One example of this confusion comes from the testimony from well-known soprano singer Dimitra Theodosiou, who was also travelling on the ship. She told reporters on camera that she was attacked by Arabs so that they can move ahead of her and the other woman and children:
She said that: Turks and Iraqis looked at her and the other people set to be rescued with hatred and then proceeded to beat and push women, children and elderly so that they can move ahead and save themselves before they did.She said that she was personally attacked three times.
Her claim was confirmed in a report by AP. It said that the principle of women and children first went out the window, and passengers started pushing and shoving and came to blows over seats in the lifeboats and helicopter baskets.
In the chaos that followed several other passengers were quoted by AP as saying that they received virtually no instructions from the crew.
“Everyone there was trampling on each other to get onto the helicopter,” Greek truck driver Christos Perlis told The Associated Press by telephone.
“The jungle law prevailed,” said another Greek passenger, Irene Varsioti. “There was no queue or order. No respect was shown for children.”
Another survivor told reporters that he feared that at least three of his colleagues were dead because they were sleeping in their trucks.
In total, 40 Greeks and three people of foreign origin arrived at the Elefsina military airport on Monday night by C-130. Their identity still remains unknown.
In other related news, it was revealed that the Norman Atlantic had serious deficiencies discovered just nine days before it caught fire. An inspection that was conducted on the ship at the port of Patras on December 19th discovered six deficiencies (the most notable of which were: malfunctioning fire doors and openings in fire-resisting divisions). Also, plans for the search and rescue of passengers in the event of an emergency were not approved, while emergency systems including lighting, batteries and switches were missing. A report by the ProtoThema online news service notes that watertight doors were also found to not meet guidelines, and there were problems discovered with life saving appliances. All of these deficiencies should have detained the ship and it's operators should have fixed all these problems before sailing off from Greece.
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