Rough sea doesn't stop liner rescue
Source: Agencies |
February 25, 2011, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
TWO passenger liners braved churning seas yesterday to whisk 4,500 Chinese workers away from strife-torn Libya to the Mediterranean island of Crete, while rough weather further west left hundreds of Americans stranded on a ferry in Tripoli.
As tens of thousands of foreigners sought to flee the turmoil in Libya, Britain pondered whether to send in its military to evacuate oil workers stranded in remote sites by fierce fighting in the North African nation.
Those who made it out of Libya described a frightening scene - with bodies hanging from electricity poles in Libya's eastern port of Benghazi and militia trucks driving around loaded up with dead bodies. One video showed a tank apparently crushing a car with people inside.
In Crete, some passengers smiled and waved from the decks of the Greek-flagged Hellenic Spirit, which sailed from Benghazi, a city that has broken away from the control of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Others departing the ship needed medical attention. "The situation was pretty bad over there ... we heard lots of gunfire and saw many burned-out buildings," Pantelis Kimendiadis, a Greek oil worker employed at a plant near Benghazi, told The Associated Press moments after stepping off the ferry.
People who managed to flee Tripoli by air described sheer chaos at the airport, with people climbing over each other to get on planes. Amateur video showed crowds of people jammed shoulder to shoulder, some appearing to be camped out.
"The airport is just a zoo. There's about 10,000 people there, all trying to get out," Ewan Black of Britain told the BBC as he got off a flight at London's Gatwick Airport.
Americans who eagerly climbed aboard the Maria Dolores ferry at Tripoli's As-shahab port on Wednesday faced a long delay in their travel plans. Strong winds have been whipping up high waves in the Mediterranean Sea, and the 600-passenger catamaran ferry was not likely to leave for Malta until today.
As tens of thousands of foreigners sought to flee the turmoil in Libya, Britain pondered whether to send in its military to evacuate oil workers stranded in remote sites by fierce fighting in the North African nation.
Those who made it out of Libya described a frightening scene - with bodies hanging from electricity poles in Libya's eastern port of Benghazi and militia trucks driving around loaded up with dead bodies. One video showed a tank apparently crushing a car with people inside.
In Crete, some passengers smiled and waved from the decks of the Greek-flagged Hellenic Spirit, which sailed from Benghazi, a city that has broken away from the control of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Others departing the ship needed medical attention. "The situation was pretty bad over there ... we heard lots of gunfire and saw many burned-out buildings," Pantelis Kimendiadis, a Greek oil worker employed at a plant near Benghazi, told The Associated Press moments after stepping off the ferry.
People who managed to flee Tripoli by air described sheer chaos at the airport, with people climbing over each other to get on planes. Amateur video showed crowds of people jammed shoulder to shoulder, some appearing to be camped out.
"The airport is just a zoo. There's about 10,000 people there, all trying to get out," Ewan Black of Britain told the BBC as he got off a flight at London's Gatwick Airport.
Americans who eagerly climbed aboard the Maria Dolores ferry at Tripoli's As-shahab port on Wednesday faced a long delay in their travel plans. Strong winds have been whipping up high waves in the Mediterranean Sea, and the 600-passenger catamaran ferry was not likely to leave for Malta until today.
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