Firefighters who are battling for a third day a blaze on a ferry sailing from Greece to Italy have found the body of a passenger listed as missing.
It is the first reported fatality after rescuers managed to take at least 281 out of 292 passengers and crew to safety from the blaze, which broke out on the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia early on Friday.
According to the coastguard, earlier on Sunday rescue teams found a survivor, a 21-year-old man from Belarus, at the stern of the ferry, reviving hopes that other missing passengers could still be found alive.
The ferry had been on its way to the Italian port of Brindisi from Igoumenitsa in Greece when it was engulfed by flames off the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea.
Many of the passengers were truck owners or drivers transporting goods through Europe.
The dead man was found in the cabin of a truck in the ship's hold and had suffered serious burns, a fire brigade official said.
The coastguard said a total of 10 people — all Bulgarian, Turkish and Greek nationals — were still missing.
Greek television video showed the 21-year-old climbing down a stepladder from the vessel onto a tugboat tied to it.
A group of truck drivers who survived the ordeal arrived back in Bulgaria in the early hours of Sunday.
"Once we were in the boats we saw the huge flames. Everything burned, the losses are big, but I am glad we are alive and we will see our families," truck driver Rumen Cholakov told Bulgarian Nova TV.
The ferry is part of the fleet of group Grimaldi Lines and has a capacity of up to 560 passengers, according to the company's website.
Grimaldi Lines spokesman Paul Kyprianou said the cause of the fire was still under investigation but there were indications it started from the ship's hold.
Reuters/ABC
