OTTAWA — Greek officials say one Canadian citizen is listed on the manifest of a ferry which caught fire near Albania, forcing a dramatic evacuation on stormy seas.
But the whereabouts of the man, identified only as N. Pejcinovksi, are unclear.
Eight people have died in the fire and 427 have been rescued, including the entire crew.
The director of the press office at the Greek embassy in Ottawa says they aren’t certain Pejcinovksi was actually on board the ship when it set sail from Greece to Italy.
Sia Papatriantafyllou says no one with that name is currently listed among the survivors from the ferry fire rescued by Greek authorities.
Foreign affairs officials in Ottawa couldn’t immediately confirm whether there were any Canadians on board the boat.
Pejcinovksi was listed as passenger number 365 of the 422 passengers on the ship’s manifest and there were also 56 crew members.
The fire broke out before dawn Sunday on a car deck of the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic on a journey from the Greek port of Patras to Ancona in Italy.
All day and night, passengers huddled on the vessel’s upper decks, pelted by rain and hail and struggling to breathe through the thick smoke.
The evacuation of the ferry was completed early in the afternoon on Monday, said Italy’s transport minister, Maurizio Lupi.
Lupi said it was premature to speculate on whether people were still missing.
He suggested that there might have been some people who reserved a spot on the ferry but did not board.
Four of the dead were found in the water, while the body of a Greek man was recovered Sunday from a lifeboat chute.
It wasn’t immediately clear where the others had been found.