Boat makes unscheduled landing in Greece

More than 300 tourists were evacuated from a tour boat that washed on to the shores of the Greek island of Poros, near Athens yesterday. The tourists were mostly Japanese, Russian and American, and were taken to Athens’ port of Piraeus later in the day. The Poros deputy mayor told local media, “Everyone is fine and in surprisingly good spirits. Nobody suffered a scratch and everything went very well. There was no panic and nobody was hurt. We were lucky, thank God.”

The ship was forced onto the island due to excessively choppy seas, and divers were investigating the hull to assess damage and assure there was no fuel leakage.

Reports say that the vessel, the Giorgis, began to take on large amounts of water, but was in no danger of sinking outright. The boat was travelling a route very common in the area, ferrying tourists from Piraeus to the nearby islands of Poros, Hydra and Aegina.