Fire on the Grimaldi ferry: "There are no Italians among the missing"

Nine people would be missing from the number of passengers and crew members on board the Euroferry Olimpia ferry, traveling from Greece to Brindisi and devoured by flames while it was about 10 miles north of the island of Corfu. This was confirmed by the Grimaldi Group, owner of the boat. They would be Greeks and Bulgarians, while among the missing they are not Italians.

Five people have already been traced on board, and "the recovery and evacuation operations started immediately with any means available on site", explains Grimaldi. Two men, trapped in the boat's garage, were rescued by firefighters and taken to the ship's deck to be picked up by a Greek navy helicopter and transferred to the Corfu hospital. One of them would have respiratory problems. Ten wounded in total, 9 men and one woman.

Euroferry Olimpia traveled with 239 passengers, of various nationalities, and 51 crew members. 64 Italians on board. In the garages there are also 153 commercial vehicles (including trucks and semi-trailers), as well as 32 vehicles accompanying passengers. The rescue operations took place thanks to the timely intervention of a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza, the "Montesperone", which was also applauded by President Mattarella.

THE ALARM - The alarm went off at 4:12 (local time), when the ship's commander contacted the Group headquarters informing about the fire in garage number 3. The ship's crew immediately intervened to tame the flames with the on-board vehicles while the commander and the personnel of the Group, through the "emergency response team", "promptly notified the incident to the competent national and Greek authorities, and took all necessary measures to manage in the best of ways the accident ".

"VERY HIGH FLAMES" - "There were very high flames, on board there was panic", the passengers' story to the men of the GDF after being rescued by the Monte Sperone patrol boat. "The commander of the ship, when the fire broke out, went around the cabins and gathered the passengers on a single deck - explains the commander of the patrol boat Felice Lodovico Simone Cicchetti - then gave the ship abandonment, but evacuation it wasn't a walk in the park. "

PASSENGERS - The evacuees are currently being assisted in Corfu, where Grimaldi "offered hotel accommodation, waiting to receive the authorization from the competent authorities to proceed with the transfer to their places of residence", which should take place tomorrow with the Florencia ferry of the same company.

THE SHIP - The Euroferry Olympia, flying the Italian flag, sailed from the port of Igoumenitsa at 1:20 am (local time) today with docking scheduled in Brindisi this morning at 9 am. February in Igoumenitsa, "to a Port State Control visit, which ended with a positive outcome".

RECOVERY - In the meantime, recovery operations are continuing through the use of specialized tugboats and with assignment entrusted to SMIT Salvage, "the Dutch company world leader in the rescue sector". According to Grimaldi "at the moment there are no fuel spills or other types of environmental damage". The Diciotti ship of the Italian Coast Guard also left Catania "to participate in the operations to extinguish the fire and contain any pollution at sea". In support of the environmental protection and fire prevention activities, the Coast Guard specified, "also a depolluting unit of the Castalia fleet which operates on behalf of the Ministry of Ecological Transition".

THE HYPOTHESIS - According to the first reconstructions, the flames that gave rise to the fire could have originated from a truck in the hold of the ship.

(Unioneonline / vl)