An ambulance and a police vehicle standby outside the Egyptian Hospital in Hurghada where the injured were taken after a tourist submarine sank in the Red Sea on Thursday, killing six people and injuring at least 29 others. Photo by EPA-EFE
March 27 (UPI) — At least six people were killed and dozens were injured Thursday after a “recreational” tourist submarine sank in the Red Sea off the sprawling Egyptian beach resort of Hurghada, 280 miles southeast of Cairo.
Emergency services rescued 29 people from the stricken vessel which was carrying at least 40 passengers when it sank at around 10 a.m. local time about a half-mile from Hurghada harbor with the Russian Embassy in Cairo confirming all were its citizens.
Children were among those killed and nine people were injured, four of them critically, after the submarine was involved in some sort of collision, before sinking.
The BBC reported that the vessel belonged to Hurghada-based Sindbad Submarines.
Related
The company operates two of only 14 “real” recreational submarines in the world, offering underwater tours down to 80 feet to up to 44 people at a time to explore coral reefs and their marine inhabitants in “airconditioned comfort and safety,” according to the company’s website.
The Russian Embassy said the group was traveling with Bilbio Globus Egypt Tours. The Egyptian Travel Agents Association lists the company as a Hurghada-based member.
The tragedy comes four months to the day after 11 people were killed after their dive boat, the Sea Story, capsized in the Red Sea in November 180 miles to the south while en route to Hurghada, apparently after being struck by a large wave.
In February, another so-called “live-aboard” tourist vessel capsized north of Hurghada in a storm off Jabal Al-Zeit with six crew members aboard. Four were quickly plucked from the sea by patrol boats despatched from the nearby Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company facility, but two others were only located after an extensive search and rescue operation.
The incident occurred the same day the British government’s Marine Accident Investigations Branch issued a safety alert to tourists following at least two deadly incidents involving Egyptian liveaboard dive boats operating in the Red Sea in the past two years.
Saying it was aware of at least 16 accidents that had occurred over the last 5 years, some of which had resulted in loss of life, the MAIB warned tourists intending to stay on liveaboard vessels to exercise “extreme caution” as they were unlikely to be built, maintained, equipped, and operated to the standard of similar vessels in the U.K.
“While MAIB does not have the jurisdiction to investigate accidents involving non-U.K. flagged vessels operating within the territorial waters of another coastal state, we have made the appropriate authorities aware of our national interest and offered every assistance with any safety investigation they conduct,” said Marine Accidents Chief Inspector Andrew Moll.
