Around 30 Romanians onboard the ferry that caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea

A strong fire broke out on a ferry in the Mediterranean, with 288 people on board. A video posted by a Greek news site shows the ferry Euroferry Olympia on fire. There were 29 Romanians on board, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said.

The ferry was making a run from Greece to Italy and had 288 people on board: 237 passengers and 51 members of the crew. The Italian-flagged ship departed from Igoumenitsa (the largest port in western Greece) and headed for the Italian port of Brindisi, 9 hours away.

The incident occurred near the island of Corfu.

According to the first information, it was a human error that led to the outbreak of the fire. The fire allegedly started from the refrigeration system.

Attempts are currently being made to determine exactly how many people were actually on board, as there are suspicions that there were also people traveling illegally to reach Italy or Greece.

Initially Nikos Koudounis, a doctor in Athens, told Digi24 that no Romanian was among the passengers rescued from the ferry.

The quoted sources also said that only one passenger had dyspnoea and was taken to hospital, but, besides him, there were no other people with burns, fractures or other health problems.

The testimony of a Romanian onboard

A Romanian on the ferry that caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea told Digi24 the moments he went through during the fire. He said that the rescue operation was very fast, that it was safe and that the Romanian Embassy offered the Romanians all the necessary support.

Romanian Bogdan Topan told Digi24 that when the fire broke out he was in his room and asleep. He said the evacuation was very quick and professional. He was going to Italy.

“We were in the room, they found us there was a fire, they gave us life jackets and took us to the deck behind the ship, they separated us – first the women and children got into the lifeboats. The crew of the Greek Coast Guard appeared immediately, I think they intervened in half an hour at most,” he recounted.

Bogdan added that he left a car, a trailer, money on the ferry: “I didn’t get anything back, members of the check crew came down, but there was too much smoke, you couldn’t breathe. The important thing is that we’re safe now.”