Tragic end: ‘I watched my husband die’

A helicopter winched a family to safety after a fire broke out on a ferry travelling from the western Greek port of Patras to the Italian port of Ancona on Sunday, leaving one dead and hundreds stranded. The vehicle passenger ferry Norman Atlantic was transporting 411 passengers, 56 crew-members and 222 vehicles when it caught fire approximately 78 kilometres (48 miles) northwest of the Greek island of Corfu. The Italian Navy said that they have transported the victims and those injured to the southern Italian city of Brindisi. The evacuation operation of those stranded has been hampered due to choppy seas and gale force winds of 90 kilometres (55 miles per hour). Only 149 people have been rescued from the ferry and the blaze is still burning.

The burning ferry "Norman Atlantic" adrift off Albania. Picture: AFP / HO/ GUARDIA COSTIERA Source: AFP

A SURVIVOR of the tragic Greek fire ferry disaster has recounted in saddening detail the events leading up to her husband's death.

Teodora Douli, 56, said she watched her husband die as they tried to swim from the burning ship to a lifeboat.

"We spent four hours in the water," she said on Monday. "I tried to save him but I couldn't. We are dying, we're dying, he told me.

"I watched my husband die," she added in an interview with the Italian news agency ANSA. "He was bleeding through his nose, perhaps because he banged his head on the side of the ship."

Her 62-year-old Greek husband's body was recovered from the water on Sunday as she was flown to a hospital at Galatina near Lecce on Italy's south-eastern heel.

Survived ... a journalist interviews a passenger of the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic. Picture: AP Source: AP

At least five people have died after the ferry caught fire in the Adriatic Sea of the coast of Greece. Four bodies were recovered from the water around the stricken Norman Atlantic on Monday.

Wrapped in blankets and with many of them sporting bandages, 49 of the 478 passengers and crew who were on board the ferry when it caught fire shortly after dawn on Sunday disembarked from the merchant ship Spirit of Piraeus at the Italian port of Bari.

Rescue effort ... passengers being evacuated from the burning ferry Norman Atlantic. Picture: AFP/Marina Militaire Source: AFP

Two dual Australian citizens were on the ferry but no further details are known.

They and other evacuees told how the fire triggered terror and panic, which the crew appeared ill-prepared to deal with.

One of the first passengers off in Bari told reporters he had thought he was going to die as parts of the boat became engulfed by thick smoke as the ferry was travelling from Greece from Italy.

"We did not know what to do. The staff had no idea how to get people off the boat," he said.

"The lifeboats did not work, there was only one of them in the water and none of the crew were there to help people."

Survivors ... passengers and crew of the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic, that caught fire in the Adriatic Sea, are rescued from the Italian Navy ship San Giorgio. Picture: AP/Italian Navy Source: AP

All passengers are reported to have been evacuated, with about 60 people, thought to be mainly crew, remaining on the ferry shortly before 12pm GMT (11pm Monday AEDT), nearly 36 hours after the fire broke out on the car deck and left the huge vessel drifting dangerously in high seas off the coast of Albania.

With a second navy boat at the scene and able to provide a landing deck for helicopters, the pace of the evacuation accelerated significantly on Monday.

As fears for those on board receded, questions began to be asked about how the fire started and why it was not contained.

Awaiting assistance ... Italian and Greek rescue crews have battled gale-force winds and massive waves as they struggle to evacuate hundreds of people from the ferry. Picture: AP/Italian Navy Source: AP

Bari prosecutor Giuseppe Volpe announced a criminal investigation that will seek to establish whether negligence contributed to the disaster.

The Italian navy and coastguard worked through the night trying to get people off the vessel that was being buffeted by powerful, bitingly cold winds and huge waves.

Despite their efforts, more than 200 people were still on board at dawn, having spent 24 hours being lashed by sleety rain and gale-force winds and fearing for their lives.

Lost at sea ... Italian coast guards carry the body of a dead passenger of Norman Atlantic into a truck at port of Brindisi. Picture: AFP/ Carlo Hermann Source: AFP

The Italian-owned ship, which was travelling from Patras in western Greece to Ancona in Italy, started drifting off the coast of Albania after the fire put its steering system out of action.

Some of the rescued passengers displayed mild symptoms of hypothermia but doctors treating the evacuees indicated that they were mainly dealing with shock and trauma.

The crew, headed by Italian skipper Argilio Giacomazzi, 62, were expected to be the last off, in keeping with maritime tradition.

Struggled to breathe ... a woman is conveyed by paramedics to a hospital in southern Italy. Picture: AP/Max Frigione Source: AP

The fire broke out before dawn on Sunday on a car deck of the ferry, carrying 422 passengers and 56 crew members. Passengers huddled on the vessel's upper decks, pelted by rain and hail and struggling to breathe through the thick smoke, passengers told Greek media by phone.

"We are outside, we are very cold, the ship is full of smoke," passenger Giorgos Stiliaras told Greek Mega TV.

He recalled people being awakened by "the smell of burning plastic" and that the heat from the fire felt like the floors were "boiling."

Rescue efforts ... passengers of the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic, that caught fire in the Adriatic Sea, disembark from a ship in Bari Harbour. Picture: AP Photo/Luigi Mistrulli Source: AP

Dotty Channing-Williams, mother of ferry passenger Nick Channing-Williams, said she had managed to speak to her son before he and his Greek fiancee were airlifted to safety. In an interview with The Associated Press from her home in Newbury, Britain, she said she had complained to her son that there was no information available for families.

"He said 'Well, it's an awful lot worse for us because we're actually standing out here in the pouring rain, and thunder and lightening, and we really just don't know exactly what's going to happen."'

The president of the Brindisi Port Authority, Hercules Haralambides, said the passengers were still out on deck after midnight, but that blankets had been provided by rescue crews from the Brindisi-based St George navy ship, which was leading the rescue. Medical personnel had also boarded to check on passengers and crew, the navy said.

In the dark ... passengers pleaded by mobile phone live on TV to be saved from the burning ferry Picture: AFP/Guardia Costiera Source: AFP

The ferry was last inspected by the Patras Port Authority on December 19 and six "deficiencies" were found, but none were so grave as to keep it in port, according to the report on the European Maritime Safety Agency's website.

The deficiencies involved a "malfunctioning" fire door as well as "missing" emergency lighting and batteries and defective "watertight doors."

The ship manufacturer, Carlo Visentini, was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying that only one of the 160 fireproof doors was found to be problematic in the inspection and that it was located above the fire zone. Visentini said the problem was fixed immediately to the satisfaction of the inspectors.

Minister of Shipping Miltiadis Varvitsiotis speaks to journalists during a press conference in Athens. Picture: AFP/ STR Source: AFP

Passengers described scenes of terror and chaos when the fire broke out as they slept in their cabins.

"They called first on women and children to be evacuated from the ship," Vassiliki Tavrizelou, who was rescued along with her 2-year-old daughter, told The Associated Press.

"Ships could not approach us because of the rain and winds," Tavrizelou said in a telephone interview from Lecce. "We were at least four hours on the deck, in the cold and rain."

She recalled the ship alarm going off and seeing fire from her cabin. "Then we heard explosions," she said.

The ship, run by a Greek ferry company, was packed with holiday-makers and truck drivers making the popular transport run between Greece and Italy.

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