Mourning and anger gripped Turkish Cyprus on Aug. 31, as rescuers were still hunting for survivors a day after a ferry capsized off the northern part of the island, leaving eight dead and more than a dozen missing.
The ferry, carrying 267 passengers and crew, left the northern port of Kyrenia around midday on Aug. 30 en route to Taşucu in the Turkish province of Mersin. It capsized shortly after departure, triggering a major rescue operation.
Of those on board, 241 people were rescued, eight died and 18 remained missing.
Early on Aug. 31, the captain and eight crew members were brought before a judge and formally arrested. The arrests came as Turkish Cyprus began three days of national mourning.
Passengers said the ferry began taking on water and listing after they heard several loud noises from below decks, about four nautical miles from the coast.
Survivors said the crew failed to launch an evacuation operation and abandoned the vessel before everyone else. They also said there were not enough life jackets on board and that the crew failed to address the shortage during the incident.
Serkan Kunduracı, who escaped the sinking ferry by pulling himself through a broken window, said he saw children and other passengers drowning in the sea about 7.5 kilometers (4 nautical miles) off the Turkish Cypriot coast.
“I saw some who didn’t know how to swim die in the sea,” he told the Demirören News Agency.
“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. He drowned too.
“We saw and witnessed a family’s children, boys and girls, very young children, drowning.”
Kunduracı said the crew initially told passengers there was no major problem after inspecting the leak.
“The crew came, took a look and told us there wasn’t a major problem, just a loose gasket causing a leak,” he said.
By the time an evacuation order was given, panic had already spread among passengers. The survivors said the vessel began tilting as the captain apparently tried to turn it back toward Kyrenia.
Another survivor, Deniz Özpolat, described the chaos as passengers tried to escape the ferry, which was owned by Filo Denizcilik.
“We headed toward the exit. A crush of people had already formed. We couldn’t find the life jackets. They shut the doors on us and we couldn’t get out,” he told DHA.
“They opened them later. We jumped into the water. The ship began to sink after listing to the side. We broke the windows and rescued people. There was a family out in the open water, there were children.”
Efe Mültici, another survivor, told CNN Türk: “Some people had to jump without lifebuoys or life jackets. It was literally a fight for survival.”
Images broadcast by Turkish media showed survivors wearing orange life jackets and sitting on the upturned hull of the ferry as they waited to be rescued. Many were later seen disembarking from small pleasure boats at a nearby port.
The ferry later sank completely and is now lying at a depth of 514 meters (1,686 feet), Turkish Cypriot Transport Minister Erhan Arıklı said.
Recovering the vessel’s “black box” could help determine what caused the disaster, Arıklı said.
The Turkish Coast Guard and military were assisting rescue teams from Turkish Cyprus, Prime Minister Ünal Üstel said, describing the incident as the worst maritime disaster in the island’s history.
