Two Spanish tourists are still missing in the Red Sea after their dive boat sank off Egypt's Sinai coast, a popular beach holiday and diving destination.
The married couple, Israel Pérez and Maria Lourdes González, both 33, whose home in the Valencia region is pictured here, were the only two not to make it off the boat when it sank.
Fourteen other Spanish tourists and seven Egyptian crew were rescued after the 28m long 'Coral Princess' capsized and sank near Ras Mohamed. A naval boat was looking for the missing tourists, but had not spotted them more than five hours after the accident.
The privately-owned boat left the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh heading to Ras Mohamed, home to abundant coral reefs and a British Merchant Navy shipwreck that is a popular dive site.
Eleven of the divers knew each other through the Javea Dolphins Dive Club in Valencia. Two of the other divers were from Catalunya and the other from Bilbao.
Whilst the survivors are trying to get all the paperwork sorted so that they can fly to Cairo and then onto Spain, the search continues for Pérez and González who have not been seen since the boat sank yesterday close to the coast in this popular tourist destination on the Sinai peninsula.
It is believed that their bodies are still in the boat, which now lies hundreds of metres below the surface. The people in charge of the Javea Diving School Dolphins are to fly out to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt today in an effort to find their two missing members. They will join in the search and rescue efforts as soon as they arrive.
Luis Miró and another of the surviors, who only wanted to be identified by his initials, A.D., are still suffering from physical injuries sustained sa the boat sank. A.D. has severe bruising to his feet and is convinced that one of his toes is broken.
One of the survivors, Jorge Sánchez, told the press that the official reports of the incident blaming rough seas for the boat sinking, were inaccurate. "There were no waves and no wind", he said.
All the survivors have been critical of the crew's handling of the incident. "The captain was the first to jump ship, and he didn't warn the rest of us or send an emergency signal to the coastguards", they said.
Gorka Rotaeche, originally from Bilbao, but now living in Madrid, compared the whole event to a scene from 'Titanic' saying
that there were no life jackets and the crew were incompetent, getting themselves into the lifeboat first and then being completely incapable of helping the others.
Alberto Alcalá who was on the dive trip with his 18-year-old daughter, Sara, described the captain and crew as "incompetent idiots". "Two people have drowned," he added, "but it could easily have been all of us."
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