NewzISTANBUL (AP) — Survivors of a ferry disaster off the coast of northern Cyprus that killed at least eight people described on Monday the moments of terror as they scrambled to escape the sinking vessel. The passengers spoke as rescue teams searched for 20 people missing since the ship carrying 267 passengers and crew capsized after leaving Kyrenia, a port in breakaway northern Cyprus, for Tasucu in Turkey on Sunday afternoon. Authorities had earlier said 18 were missing.
Among those unaccounted for were a 12-year-old girl and her brother, 6. “My daughter slipped from my grasp. The suitcase fell, she slipped from my hand,” their mother, Ayten Bicer, 35, told Turkey’s DHA news agency.
Serkan Kunduraci, who escaped the sinking ferry by hauling himself through a broken window, said he saw children and others drowning in the sea some 7.5 kilometers (4.6 miles) off the Cypriot coast. “I saw some who didn’t know how to swim die in the sea,” he told DHA. “There were those who, in a panic, didn’t grab life jackets.
Some jumped (into the sea) immediately out of fear. There was an old man, we couldn’t get him. We tried to pull him up, but we couldn’t.
“We saw and witnessed a family’s children, boys and girls, very young children, drowning.” Panic and confusion as the ship began listing Survivors told how the ship, the Filo Jet, began listing and taking on water after they heard a number of loud noises from below decks. “The crew came, took a look and told us there wasn’t a major problem, just a loose gasket causing a leak,” Kunduraci said. When the order to evacuate came, he added, people were already panicking.
He said the ship began tilting as the captain apparently made an effort to return to Kyrenia, known as Girne in Turkish. “There was so much screaming and so many people were trapped behind — they had been left in the rear,” Kunduraci said. There were bodies and people piled on top of them.
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