Scenes of panic, agony and incredible improvisation unfolded on Tuesday afternoon when the passenger ferry “Panagia Paravouniotissa” suddenly ran aground on a rocky reef, just minutes after leaving the port of Nea Styra for Agia Marina.

The ship, with 105 passengers and nine crew members, came to a halt at a spot particularly familiar to sailors, raising reasonable questions about how the accident happened. Images released by protothema.gr were recorded on video by passengers and eyewitnesses and show the ship literally “pinned” on the rocks, with the bow resting on a reef within a stone’s throw of the shore and the passengers looking around in fear, trying to understand what has happened.

The rocky reef:

Some stayed calm, others went into shock, and there were elderly, overweight and mobility-impaired people who could not move around easily. According to passengers, there was no official notification from the captain or crew and no organised evacuation plan was activated, resulting in confusion.

Passengers abandon the ferry:

 Among those who mobilized immediately, the case of Vassilis Orfanos stands out. “My children were there and they called me.” They found the ship on the rocks, in a reef that the captains must have passed through thousands of times, which caused a great impression. I wonder how the captain managed to throw it there, it takes a lot of effort. Only a drunk could have done that,” he says with indignation.

Without wasting time, he got into his boat, which he keeps tied to the remnant, and headed for the grounding site. He was the first to get close to the ship.

“I saw the ship had run aground. Some were in panic, others were calm. Elderly, overweight, disabled people on board. It was a dangerous situation,” he describes, giving the outline of what he experienced with his own eyes.His first action was to contact the Coast Guard’s operations room. There, he says, they told him that the captain had requested the evacuation of the ship, so they advised him to take as many people as he could with his own boat. “They told me that the captain had requested that the ship be evacuated, so they asked me to take as many people as I could,” he says.From that point, a spontaneous but life-saving rescue operation began. Vassilis Orfanos approaches the ship, ties up alongside its side and, together with his daughter and son, begins lining up and evacuating passengers safely. “There was no coordination, something my daughter and son and I were doing. I tied up next to the boat and through a ladder we put all the passengers in, with routes we organised, who we transferred to other boats that arrived there,” he explains. “After we had evacuated ¾ of the boat, the Coast Guard showed up,” he adds.