- CAIRO: Hundreds of people were rescued from a burning passenger ferry on the Red Sea on Thursday.
- An Associated Press report quoted a Jordanian official as saying that a Jordanian man died while 1,246 other passengers and crew members, most of them Egyptians, were rescued after a fire aboard the ferry that was sailing to Egypt’s port of Nuweiba.
The blaze had broken out in the ferry’s cargo section during the voyage across the Gulf of Aqaba, said Jordanian Civil Defense spokesman, Farid Al-Sharaa.
As flames rose up into the sky, a Jordanian rescue ship reached the stricken vessel, the Pella, 16 km off the coast of Jordan. The rescuers managed to extinguish the blaze but an unidentified Jordanian man died after jumping into the water and fatally injuring himself, Al-Sharaa said.
Twelve passengers suffered from smoke inhalation and were taken to a Jordanian hospital. The remaining 1,230 passengers — all Egyptians — were placed aboard another ferry that subsequently sailed off to Egypt, Al-Sharaa said.
The passengers of the Pella were mostly Egyptian expatriate workers returning home for the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
