A stock photo of the Sea Story.Photo:Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu via Getty
Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu via Getty
Survivors of thetourist boat that sank in the Red Seaare speaking out.
TheSea Storyleft Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam, Egypt, on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, and was expected to reach Hurghada Marina on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, PEOPLE previously reported, citingThe TelegraphandReuters.
TheAssociated Pressstated that 31 foreign nationals had been on board at the time, and up to 11 of these have either been confirmed dead or remain missing, according to theBBC.
Rescuers are seen near where the Sea Story sank.Xinhua/Shutterstock
Xinhua/Shutterstock
OLucianna Galetta, of Belgium, was one of the last of 35 survivors to be rescued, according to the BBC. She had been on the boat with her partner Christophe Lemmens, and they survived after they found an air pocket in the engine room at the rear of the vessel, which was still sticking out of the water.
Despite admitting to the BBC that she was “very happy” to hear a rescue helicopter about eight hours after the boat capsized, she added that this didn’t stop to help and “we had to wait 27 hours more.”
“We had no communication with the outside, nothing. No-one tried to see if there was someone alive in there,” Galetta told the outlet of the rescue mission.
“I was so ready to die. We didn’t think that someone would come,” she admitted to the BBC.
Rescuers help survivors after the Sea Story sinking.Egyptian Press Center via AP
Egyptian Press Center via AP
“We are lucky to be alive,” she told the BBC. “But there are so many people who didn’t come back from this and I want their families to be able to grieve.”
Another survivor, Sarah Martin, from the U.K., said that she remembered “looking out at the waves,” before the disaster, admitting, “The weather wasn’t terrible,” but did tell the outlet that “furniture was sliding around the deck — we asked the crew if it was normal and they just shrugged, so we didn’t realize the danger we were in.”
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Hissora Gonzalez, of Spain, told the BBC, “I didn’t sleep that night because the boat was rocking so much,” before the sinking, adding that they were in “total darkness” after the vessel “flipped onto its side with a loud bang” before it went silent when the engines died just before 3 a.m.
TheSea Storywas constructed in 2022 as a four-deck vessel and registered in Safaga, Egypt, according to Dive Pro Liveaboard. The company had mentioned on its website that the vessel carried life jackets in each cabin and two safety rafts for 25 people each, PEOPLE previously reported.
According to the BBC, the life rafts didn’t have food and water in them, as guests were previously told in a safety meeting, and Martin said that a torch they found “didn’t have any batteries,” and the flares “had already been used,” among other alleged safety issues.
source: people.com
