The coast guard of Italy announced on Saturday that it rescued 177 people, including 27 crew members, from a ferry that caught fire while traveling from the Italian island of Lampedusa to Porto Empedocle in Sicily.
The ferry was heading from Lampedusa, Italy, to Porto Empedocle, Sicily.
All passengers were transferred to a coast guard vessel and taken to Porto Empedocle, with the exception of three who returned to Lampedusa.
The fire broke out in the ferry’s engine room late Friday night. As part of the rescue operation, coast guard personnel used water jets to cool parts of the ferry affected by the blaze.
The passengers included 83 migrants who were being transferred from Lampedocle, as per a statement from the coast guard.
This is not the first time a ferry has caught fire while sailing between Greece and Italy. A similar incident occurred on a ferry traveling from Greece to Italy, resulting in the deaths of 10 people in 2014.
The Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia was headed to the Italian port of Brindisi from Igoumenitsa, the largest port in western Greece, when a fire broke out on the ferry.
There is currently no known cause for the fire that broke out on the ferry. A spokesperson for Grimaldi Lines, the company that owns the ferry, stated that the cause of the fire is still under investigation but there were indications it started in the ship’s hold.
The ferry is part of the Grimaldi Lines fleet and has a capacity of up to 560 passengers.
