An Italian cruise ship carrying 237 passengers and more than 51 crew members is on fire off the coast of Greece in the Ionian Sea, citing port authorities. Three rescue patrol boats and three coast guard tugs were sent to the vessel on fire in the Ionian Sea.
The Euroferry Olympia sailed between Igoumenitsa in Greece and Brindisi in Italy. According to media reports, all the passengers of Euroferry Olympia have already evacuated the vessel in lifeboats.
The cause of the fire remains unknown. No casualties have been reported. As it is an auto ferry, we suspect one of the passengers was driving an electric vehicle with a huge lithium battery that caught fire.
At least 11 people are missing from the Italian ferry that caught fire in the early hours of Friday off the island of Corfu, Greece. Hundreds of passengers evacuated the vessel in lifeboats and were transported to Corfu.
The fire reportedly started from the third deck of the ferry, possibly from a truck. There were a total of 153 commercial vehicles on the ferry, along with 32 cars. The captain of the vessel gave the evacuation order at 4:30 in the morning.
Last year plumes of smoke were seen billowing out of the MSC Lirica, which has been moored at a Corfu port since January, according to the Greek news site Kathimerini.
But other reports show that the fire started in one of the ship’s fiberglass lifeboats, and a preliminary investigation found the damage was contained to the starboard side of the ship.
Footage shows two lifeboats attached to the ship’s starboard side had caught on fire, before firefighting vessels could respond to the inferno. The cruise industry had been anchored down for months in 2021 amid the Corona-virus plandemic.
Sputnik / New York Times 2022.
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