Exclusive Views / Hundreds of people experience horror when ferry traveling to Italy catches fire

The images were filmed by an Albanian who was rescued and is now in Corfu. Hundreds of people managed to escape the flames that engulfed the ferry on which they were traveling from Greece to Italy in the early hours of this Friday morning.

Images broadcast by Greek media showed the 183-meter-long vehicle occupied by fire and large plumes of smoke, while loudspeakers for help rang out.

The Greek Coast Guard clarified that there were 239 passengers and 51 crew members aboard the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia. Most of them managed to cross into lifeboats and be transferred to the port of Corfu.

There are currently no reports of deaths or injuries. A person with smoke-breathing problems was taken to hospital.

The ferry had departed from Igoumenitsa, the largest port in western Greece, towards the Italian port of Brindisi, located about nine hours away.

When the fire broke out, the ship was in Greek waters but the currents have recently pushed it into Albanian ones, making it now only a few miles from our shores. The flames erupted just as the ferry was near the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea.

“We woke up terrified around 4:20 in the morning. “Within an hour we were off the ship… We were rescued by the crew, who acted quickly”, said one of the passengers for TV Skai by phone. The ferry is part of the Grimaldi Lines group fleet and has a capacity of up to 560 passengers, according to the company website.

Grimaldi Lines spokesman Paul Kyprianou told Reuters that the cause of the fire was still under investigation, while the damage caused according to him is severe, because despite the efforts of the crew, it has been impossible for the flames to be extinguished.

The rescue operation involved at least three Coast Guard vessels and a Guardia di Finanza vessel.

In 2014, 10 people lost their lives when a ferry with 466 passengers and crew members caught fire while sailing from Greece to Italy.