Aussies affected by cruise ship sinking

Australian operator Gate 1 Travel said over the weekend that their 50 passengers on board the Sea Diamond that ran aground off Santorini and subsequently sank, were all safe and had been accommodated at the Ledra Marriott in Athens and were returning home over the weekend.

Louis Cruises has announced that the Sea Diamond will be replaced by another ship from their fleet, with all tours operating as scheduled.

The Sea Diamond ran aground on 5 April 2007, at around 4 p.m. several hundred metres from shore, within the caldera of the Greek island of Santorini and began taking on water, listing up to 12 degrees before her watertight doors were closed.

The 1,195 passengers, mostly Americans, were initially all reported to be safely evacuated in three hours with no injuries, the ship was towed off the rocks, and her list stabilized.

Later, it was reported that two French passengers were missing.

The large amount of water taken on board led to the cruise ship sinking shortly before 7 a.m. EEST on 6 April 2007, in water around 200 metres (656 feet) deep in the submerged caldera of the volcanic island.

Video footage shows that, toward the end, the ship completely inverted before settling stern first onto the sea floor.

In order to avoid an oil spill, plans have been made to recover around 450 metric tonnes (496 tons) of fuel from the ship’s tanks.

On 7 April, Greek authorities announced that they were charging the captain and five other officers with negligence and State television reported they were charged with causing a shipwreck through negligence, breaching international shipping safety regulations and polluting the environment.

All six were released until further notice but if convicted they could face a five-year prison sentence.

Minor injuries were reported to have only affected four passengers, however the two passengers still missing were named as French passengers, Jean Christophe Allain, aged 45, and his daughter Maud, 16.

Divers examined the wreck on 6 April 2007 to gather information on the ship’s current position and to seek the missing two, who with their surviving family had accommodated in cabin 22-07, But the underwater search of this cabin recovered nothing.

Ben Kucenko, a telecoms technician from Geelong, told the Associated Press news agency he was in the bar with friends when he heard the sound of rocks piercing the ship. “People where nervous, women were screaming and it was a struggle to get to a life jacket,” he said. “We were scared the boat was going to tip over, we could barely walk.”

The former “Birka Princess”, Sea Diamond, was built in Finland in 1986 and underwent an extensive refurbishment in 1999 and she had been sailing for Louis under the Greek flagged for the past year.

Ironically, she was the youngest of what is generally an elderly Louis fleet, two of the oldest vessels having entered service in 1957.

Meanwhile, authorities on Santorini have announced plans to sue the owners, fearing a serious blow to the booming local tourist economy from oil pollution, with Regional Governor Chrysanthos Roussos saying, “We feel it is our obligation to take legal action,” adding, “We need to ensure that the ship’s owners take responsibility for the clean-up operation”.

The Greek Merchant Marine Ministry said that the location of the shipwreck complicates both efforts to drain the ship’s fuel tanks, and the search for two French tourists believed to have been trapped on board during the accident, adding, “Divers cannot be used in these conditions and special deep-sea machinery needs to be brought in.”

Though the local authorities insist Santorini’s pristine beaches are located far from the shipwreck and are not threatened by oil slicks, anti-pollution ships and an aircraft have been operating on the site since Thursday, with a local fisherman saying, “This is an unheard-of situation for our island.”

The Ministry said, “An oil slick 100 metres wide that appeared on Thursday has already been removed, with Mr Roussos adding, “We are told that the situation is under control.”

The cruise ship still contains an estimated 400 tonnes of fuel, and there is concern that currents may push the ship deeper into Santorini’s fabled caldera, a basin formed by volcanic eruption 3500 years ago, with George Nikolaidis, a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus saying, “It is imperative to drain the fuel tanks as oil will be seeping out, and if the ship sinks to the bottom this will no longer be possible.”

The ship’s operating company, Cyprus-based Louis Hellenic Cruise Lines, says the 21-year-old, refitted Sea Diamond was “ultra-modern” and had recently undergone an inspection.

A Report by The Mole and Philip Thorniley and AP