Rescuers Pluck Hundreds From Sinking Liner

A Greek cruise liner with about 600 people aboard, most of them elderly South Africans, was sinking in mountainous seas off the southeast coast today. Helicopters and ships rescued hundreds.

At least three cargo ships, including an oil tanker, were plucking passengers by the score from lifeboats cast off the cruise liner Oceanos, but at least 200 people remained aboard, air force Maj. Jerry Evert said.

The 7,554-ton vessel was wallowing in storm-driven seas towering 24 feet, and passengers aboard were “attempting to launch life rafts with great difficulty,” air force Brig. Gen. Dick Lord said.

Just after daybreak, military helicopters began winching people off the deck as the ship began to lean over in the Indian Ocean, Evert said.

An unspecified number of small boats were aiding the rescue, he said.

Authorities said the waters had reached the first deck before daybreak.

“Our reports are that the ship is taking on water and being driven onto the shore,” said navy Capt. Richard Stephen.

The ship began foundering in heavy gales and rough seas after a powerful windstorm swept South Africa’s southeast coast with winds gusting to 88 m.p.h. That storm killed at least one person earlier and caused heavy damage.

Air force planes and helicopters circled over the Oceanos as it drifted out of control off the “Wild Coast,” a remote, sparsely inhabited area known for stormy weather and rough seas, he said.

The Oceanos had lost power after the engine room was flooded and was drifting toward shore at Coffee Bay, 80 miles due northeast of East London and 155 miles south of Durban in the Indian Ocean.

A message from the ship said, “We have heavy waves,” but gave no further details and radio contact with the ship apparently was then lost, the South African Press Assn. reported.

The Greek-registered Oceanos was on a cruise with hundreds of mainly elderly South African passengers, SAPA reported. The crew consisted of Greeks, Egyptians, Britons, Hungarians and Mauritians, it said.

Air force Col. George Hallowes said the passengers were “very much in danger.” The ship’s remote location and bad weather were hampering the rescue, he said in a telephone interview with the Cable News Network.

The helicopters converged on the ship at first light Sunday.

The loss of radio contact with government-operated monitors in Cape Town and Durban first led authorities to believe the ship was sinking or being abandoned, officials told SAPA.

The ship left Durban July 28, SAPA said. Lloyd’s Register of Ships says the Oceanos was built in 1952, was owned by the Hellenic Co. for Sea and Water Ways S.A. of Greece, and managed by Epirotiki Lines in Piraeus, Greece.

Epirotiki spokesman Alevizos Klaudatos in Piraeus said the ship was leased to TFC Tours of Johannesburg.

TFC Tours said the ship was carrying 380 passengers, 180 crew and 26 TFC employees.

The boat was making a Durban-Cape Town-Durban cruise and had left East London on Saturday afternoon before it began taking on water, he said.

Journalists in East London said the ship interrupted its cruise Thursday when a millionaire hired the vessel to host a wedding reception for his daughter.

The businessman paid for the regular passengers to stay at a hotel while he used the ship for parties, the reporters said. The regular passengers returned Saturday and the cruise continued, they said.

SAPA said four navy ships were due to sail from Durban at half-hour intervals beginning before dawn today to conduct a search. Air force planes were leaving from Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban.