Greece: Cargo ship sinks one dead, vast operation to rescue 12 people

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MANOLIS LAGOUTARIS / AFP 17:35 p.m., November 26, 2023

The sinking of a cargo ship off the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea on Sunday left one person dead and a major rescue operation is still underway to try to rescue 12 members of the ship's crew in an area swept by strong winds. The body of a man was located and transported to the port of Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, the Greek coast guard said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, despite the strong winds in the area, one of the crew members was rescued by a navy helicopter and transported to a hospital in Lesvos. "He is in a state of shock," coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told AFP, without giving further details. Fourteen people were aboard the "RAPTOR," a 106-meter-long cargo ship flying the flag of Comoros, when it reported mechanical damage at 7 a.m. before activating the distress signal about an hour later and disappearing from radar, according to authorities.

Water seeping into the cargo ship

According to the website of the state-run Ert News, the Egyptian-born survivor was found floating on a barrel and, despite a head injury, is in good health. The fate of the other 12 crew members is unknown at this stage. The rescue operation involves eight boats, three coast guard vessels, two navy and air force helicopters and a navy frigate.

According to the authorities, the "RAPTOR" was carrying cargoes of salt and departed from the port of Dekheila in northern Egypt, with Istanbul as its final destination. The 1984-built ship sank about 4.5 nautical miles (8.3 km) southwest of the island of Lesvos, authorities said.

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The crew included two Syrians, one Indian and 9 Egyptians, according to the Greek news agency ANA, citing the Lebanon-based company that operates the freighter. An earlier statement from the coast guard said four Indians and eight Egyptians were killed. According to the ANA agency, water infiltrated the "RAPTOR" massively due to very strong waves while the cargo was already ballasted by its heavy cargo, causing it to sink. In several parts of Greece, boats remained docked over the weekend due to high winds reaching 10-12 on the Beaufort scale, which goes up to <>.

Extreme weather events

For this weekend, the Greek meteorological service had issued an alert that was raised on Saturday to the level of "dangerous weather phenomenon" as Storm Oliver, also known as Bettina, moves from the Adriatic Sea towards Greece. In mid-November, strong winds in Greece damaged a warship that had been used during resistance to the ruling junta from 1967 to 1974. In recent months, the country has also been hit by extreme weather events, with floods and a series of storms.

At the beginning of September, Greece, and in particular Thessaly, an agricultural region in the centre of the country, was hit by torrential rains carried by Storm Daniel, which killed 17 people and tens of thousands of animals and destroyed entire villages.