The third Greek casualty in the Norman Atlantic fire was confirmed today by the Embassy of Greece in Rome. The victim was 59-year-old Nickolaos Paraschis.
The list of Greeks who died in the ship’s fire has grown by one, while the list of Greek survivors has not been confirmed yet. So far, the first two Greek victims of the accident were Giorgos Doulis and Kostas Koufopoulos.
Paraschis was a truck driver and he was a native of Zakynthos. His brother, Zisis Paraschis, said that according to testimonials by fellow surviving passengers, Paraschis jumped into the sea to save himself when he heard people screaming, “we are getting burned, we are getting burned.”
However, even though the rescue operations by the Italian and Greek coast guards were completed on Monday, there are no confirmed list of survivors yet. The main reason is that there is no complete list of passengers. So far, Norman Atlantic owner, ANEK, has given authorities three different lists of passengers. The third list contains 474 passenger names.
Indicative of the confusion is the fact that until last night, information given by the rescue ship of the Italian Navy San Giorgio that arrived in Brindisi spoke of 130 Greek survivors. When the ship arrived in Brindisi, the number of Greek nationals on board was 106.
The prosecutor of Bari, Giuseppe Volpi said, “we still do not know what has happened to 98 passengers, adding that in the last few hours 80 survivors arrived in Greece by helicopter and a merchant ship, but there is nothing to suggest that there is a second boat that picked up survivors.”
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