The luxury ship which was carrying 31 tourists of different nationalities and 14 crew members sank in the Red Sea on Monday, November 25.
What should have been a “five-day scuba diving tour” in the Red Sea took a completely different turn. On Monday, a luxury ship carrying 45 people – a group made up of 14 crew members and 31 tourists – capsized off the southeastern coast of Egypt. While 28 people have so far been rescued, 17 other passengers are still being sought by the navy and armed forces. Liberation takes stock of the incident.
The facts
The luxury ship “Sea Story” left Port Ghalib in southeastern Egypt near the city of Marsa Alam on Sunday for a multi-day sea expedition focused on “scuba diving”. The 45 passengers and crew members were due to reach Hurghada a few days later, 200 kilometers further north, on Friday November 29.
But this Monday, Egyptian authorities announced the sinking of the cruise ship off the coast of the Red Sea, in Egypt. The boat reportedly began sending distress signals at 5:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. Paris time), according to a press release from the Red Sea governorate. Currently, 28 people have been rescued, while search operations continue to find the other 17 passengers.
However, no information has been released regarding the causes of the sinking. The owner and operator of the Sea Story, Dive Pro Liveaboard – a company based in Egypt – also declined to comment. But according to a manager at a diving center close to the rescue operations, a member of the crew who survived the sinking claimed that the boat had been “hit in the middle of the night by a wave, which overturned the boat on its side”. The authorities of Hurghada, capital of the Red Sea, suspended maritime activities on Sunday and closed the city's port due to the “bad weather conditions”.
According to information provided by the “Sea Story” website, the cruise ship was built in 2022 and is registered in Safaga, a coastal city in Egypt. It measures 44 meters long and 9 meters wide. This boat with a wooden hull also has four decks and 18 cabins, accommodating up to 36 passengers.
How is the rescue mission organized?
According to CBS, search and rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the scene. Red Sea Governor Major General Amr Hanafi also said some of the survivors were flown to receive medical treatment, while the remaining survivors were rescued on rescue ships until the end. arrival of a military frigate. “Research continues actively in collaboration with the navy and the armed forces,” he said in a press release.
What do we know about passengers?
If the nationality and identity of the victims of the shipwreck have not been officially announced, the local council of Marsa Alam specifies that the crew of the Sea Story is composed entirely of Egyptians. According to the same source, cited by the BBC, the tourists on board are British, Spanish, German, American, Slovak, Swiss, Belgian, Polish, Norwegian, Irish, Finnish and Chinese.
Many precedents
Monday's accident is at least the third of its kind reported this year near Marsa Alam on the Red Sea. In early November, 30 people were rescued after a diving boat sank near the famous Deadalus Reef. Last June, around twenty French tourists were evacuated unharmed before their boat sank in a similar accident. A year earlier, three British tourists lost their lives when a fire burned their yacht to ashes.
The Red Sea, one of the main tourist destinations in Egypt, attracts millions of visitors every year. The tourism sector, crucial for this country of 105 million inhabitants in the midst of an economic crisis, employs around two million people and contributes to more than 10% of its GDP.
Update : at 3:50 p.m., with more information about the ship's passengers and previous accidents in the Red Sea; at 4:35 p.m. with new information on the causes of the sinking
