Passenger found alive on ferry ablaze off Greece
CORFU, Greece (AFP) - One of the passengers missing aboard the ferry ablaze off Greece was found alive on Sunday (Feb 20), Greek coastguards said.
The man was one of the 12 truck drivers who were missing following the blaze, the coastguards said.
Rescuers spotted the man on the stricken vessel's stern as it was being towed to port.
"Tell me I'm alive," the 21-year-old truck driver who said he was from Belarus, told rescuers, according to the Proto Thema news website.
Clad in tan shorts and a black t-shirt he climbed down a ladder into a rescue boat, according to images from the iefimerida news website.
He appeared to be in good physical condition, according to the Athens news agency.
The fire broke out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia late on Thursday as it sailed from Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy, with nearly 300 people aboard.
Rescuers managed to save 280 passengers on Friday, evacuating them to Corfu, but 12 lorry drivers remained missing.
The man rescued on Sunday was one of those drivers, the coastguards said.
The authorities initially gave the missing as seven from Bulgaria, three from Greece, one from Turkey and one from Lithuania.
On Sunday, they said that there was an error and the missing Lithuanian was actually the man saved, and he was from Belarus.
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