Sixteen people, including foreigners, are missing and 28 have been rescued after a tourist boat sank in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, Egyptian authorities announced on Monday.
The boat, which carried “31 tourists of different nationalities as well as 13 crew members”launched distress signals at 5:30 a.m. (03:30 GMT), according to a statement from the Red Sea governorate, in southeastern Egypt.
The governorate said 16 people were missing, four Egyptians and 12 foreigners.
He added that the boat, which belongs to an Egyptian national, was carrying passengers from Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, China, Slovakia, from Spain and Ireland.
Red Sea Governor Amr Hanafi said that according to initial information, “a sudden and significant wave” had hit the boat, causing it to capsize. Some passengers were unable to escape because they were in the cabins.
The Sea Story left Port Ghalib, near Marsa Alam in southeastern Egypt, on Sunday for a multi-day diving expedition. He was due to reach Hurghada, 200 kilometers further north, on Friday.
According to Mr. Hanafi, survivors were evacuated during an air operation and others aboard a military ship.
“Research continues actively in collaboration with the navy and the armed forces” to find possible survivors, he said in a press release.
Video footage released by authorities shows Mr Hanafi speaking in Marsa Alam with survivors of the accident while rescuers provide treatment to a tourist.
The Chinese embassy in Cairo said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being rescued.
The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that one of its nationals is missing. Likewise, Berlin indicated that “German citizens were missing after the tragic accident in the Red Sea”.
“Flipped on its side”
According to a manager at a diving center close to the rescue operations, a member of the crew who survived the sinking said the boat had been “hit in the middle of the night by a wave, which overturned the boat on its side”.
Hanafi said the ship passed its last inspection in March 2024, with no technical problems reported.
Authorities in Hurghada, the Red Sea capital, suspended maritime activities and closed the port on Sunday due to the “bad weather conditions”.
However, winds around Marsa Alam remained favorable until Sunday evening, before calming again on Monday morning, the diving manager explained.
By Monday afternoon it had become more and more “difficult to hope that the 17 missing can be rescued after 12 hours spent in the water”he added, on condition of anonymity.
The tourism sector contributes more than 10% of Egypt’s GDP.
The Red Sea, one of the country’s top tourist destinations, attracts millions of visitors every year.
Every day, dozens of dive boats explore the coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast, where strict safety rules are unevenly enforced.
Monday’s accident is at least the third of its kind reported this year near Marsa Alam.
In early November, 30 people were rescued when a dive 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.
Egypt shipwreck Red Sea
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