Passenger Ship Hits Mine and Sinks

Chronicle (Levin), 20 January 1947, Page 5

Passenger Ship Hits Mine and Sinks

Press Assn

DISASTER IN GREEK WATERS

By Telegraph

.-Copyright

Reeeived Monday, 10.10 a.m. LONDON, Jan. 19. About 300 passengers are reporled to have been killed when ihe passenger ship Chimarra -struck a mine in Greek eoastal waters ' today, says Reuter's Alhens' correspondent. The C'himarra, a converted eorvette, was bound for Piraeus with 600 passengers. The Associated Press correspondent gives the total casualties at 400 and some survivors do not think that mor-e than 100 of the 680 passengers and erew were saved. The Chimarra, which struck a mine in the channel separating Attica Province and Euboea, about two miles off Rafina and tifteen miles east oi Athens, sank in twenty minutes. An explosion occurred eayly today, but the Greek Government was only aware of the tragedv when the erew of a caique, which assisted in the rescue operations, reached Piraeus. The explosion blew off Ihe pori bow and the electric lig'hl failed. The steamei began listing heavily. No SOS was sent as ihe wireless was ])ut out of aciion. The masier of the caique repoiled that the vessel sank leaving a number of corpse? - and a mass of debris fioating on the water. Destroyers and other salvag;e vessels left for the scene. ' Thirty-eight survivors of the Ghimarra have so far arrivec at Athens, seven of them seriously injured, and were admitted to hospital. Some of the passengers. Including two girls swam ashore.

Survivors said the Chimarra sailed from Sakmika yesterday morning" with 450 passengers, 150 soldiers and a complement of eighty. Among the passengers weri1 members of the party which accompanied Prinee Paul of Greece on his foiii' of Northern Greece and several Macedonian deputies.