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Captain Failed on Ferry

STOCKHOLM () -- More lives could probably have been saved if the captain of the ferry Estonia had alerted rescue services quicker when the ship sank in a violent storm in September 1994, a report said Tuesday. More than 850 people were killed in the disaster and only 137 survived.


The captain "should immediately have alerted the Finnish sea rescue agency, which would have meant 10 extra minutes,'' Kaare Brandsjo, a member of a commission investigating the disaster. He was quoted in a newspaper story on the commission's preliminary report.


"Above all, he should have alerted the crew and passengers so that more people would have had a chance to get into the life-rafts,'' Brandsjo said. The investigators concluded that "it is doubtful if the passengers were alerted at all,'' the newspaper said.

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