Meanwhile, the relatives of the first victim of the blaze, George Doulis, who was reported to have died were told by authorities on New Year’s Eve that he was now classified as a missing person. This reduces the number of victims from Greece to ten, with a further ten still missing.
This (strange) development has frustrated Greek authorities, as their Italian counterparts simply attributed this error to a “mistake”, causing unnecessary emotional anguish to families.
Following the massive rescue operation, Minister of Shipping Miltiadis Varvitsiotis ordered authorities to provide any service they could to the relatives of Norman Atlantic passengers for their travel and/or accommodation needs.
Meanwhile, about 26 Greek crew members of the Norman Atlantic arrived at the Patras port on New Year’s Day. The ship’s chamberlain A. Damigos told reporters that the crew did everything they could to help the passengers while he argued that the ship did not have an excessive list. At the same time he attributed the discrepancy in number of passengers between Greek and Italian authorities to “anagrams” in Italy.
In Italy, prosecutors added two representatives of ANEK, the Greek ferry company that leased the Norman Atlantic ferry, as well as two crew members to the list of suspects under investigation for the deadly fire that engulfed the ferry on Sunday, December 28th, while en route from Greece to Italy.
Italy's state news agency Ansa said in one report that authorities gave permission on Friday for the towed Norman Atlantic to dock in Brindisi after debating where best to dock the multi-deck car ferry.
Read background to this story by clicking HERE
Sources: Ansa.it, To Vima, enikos.gr
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