Rescuers found on Tuesday four bodies and five survivors, a day after a tourist boat capsized off the east coast of Egypt, the governor of the Red Sea declared, Amr Hanafi.
The survivors are two Belgian tourists, an Egyptian, a Swiss and a Finn, the same source indicated. bringing the total number of rescued to 33.
The four deceased have not yet been identified and seven people are still missing.
According to a government source familiar with the rescue operations, the five survivors and the four bodies were found on Tuesday. inside the boat, which was left sideways after being hit at night by a violent wave.
The survivors “were found in a room that had not been filled with water,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The ship, which was carrying “31 tourists of different nationalities, as well as 13 crew members,” had issued distress signals on Monday at 5:30 a.m. (03:30 GMT), the Red Sea government reported.
He “Sea Story” set sail on Sunday from Port Ghalib, near Marsa Alam, in southeastern Egypt, for a multi-day diving expedition. It was expected to arrive in Hurghada, 200 kilometers further north, on Friday.
According to the Red Sea government, the ship, which belongs to an Egyptian citizen, was carrying passengers frome Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, China, Slovakia, Spain and Ireland.
“Rescue operations continue today, supported by a military helicopter and a frigate, as well as several divers,” the Red Sea governor told the AFP on Tuesday, declining to provide further details about the operation.
The four bodies recovered on Tuesday were also located inside the damaged ship.
The ship had embarked on a multi-day diving trip on Sunday and was scheduled to dock on Friday in the city of Hurghada, 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the north.
The governor said Monday that the ship capsized “suddenly and rapidly within 5 to 7 minutes” from the impact with the wave, leaving some passengers – including European, Chinese and American tourists – unable to exit their cabins in time.
Military rescue teams and a passing tourist boat pulled 28 people from the water on Monday.
According to a source at a hospital in Marsa Alam, six tourists and three Egyptians were admitted with minor injuries and discharged on Monday.
Among the tourists were “two Germans, two British, a Spaniard and a Swiss,” the hospital administrator told AFP, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Egyptian authorities have stated that the ship It had all the licenses and had passed all the inspections. A preliminary investigation It did not reveal any technical failure.
There were at least two similar boating accidents in the Marsa Alam area earlier this year, but there were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is an important tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 107 million inhabitants that is mired in a serious economic crisis. At the national level, the tourism sector employs two million people and generates more than 10 percent of its GDP.
Dozens of dive boats sail each day between the coral reefs of the Red Sea and the islands off Egypt’s eastern coast, where safety regulations are strict but their enforcement is uneven.
Earlier this month, 30 people were rescued from a dive boat which was sinking near the Daedalus reef in the Red Sea.
In June, two dozen French tourists were safely evacuated before their boat sank in a similar accident. Last year, three British tourists died when a fire broke out on their yacht.
(With information from AFP)
