More than a month after the ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea, killing more than 900 people, the successor ship is being readied this week to set sail with a new name -- and renewed apprehensions.
The 11,800-ton ferry will take over the Estonia's route between Tallinn and Stockholm starting Nov. 11. It remains to be seen whether the agony of the past can be crossed as well.
"I just don't know," said Capt. Erich Muik, shaking his head. "It's hard to say how it will affect my crew. Ask me again after the first bad storm."
Many of the new ship's crew worked at one time on the Estonia, at least one on the night that the ferry sank in a violent storm after its front door was torn off.
Muik, an Estonian who has sailed the Baltic Sea for years, said they all feel great pressure now along with the sadness of having lost many life-long friends.
Only 136 people survived the Estonia sinking, the worst in Scandinavian history. Ferry lines, as well as families and governments, are trying to cope with the consequences.
The new ship, slightly shorter but with more carrying capacity than the Estonia, is undergoing modifications at a dry dock in Turku, the southern Finnish port town where the Estonia's rescue operation was based.
The ship was built in 1979 at the same German shipyard as the Estonia.
One of the first steps since the sinking was changing the name, a nautical tradition after a vessel with a similar name goes down. The company settled on the Latin name for the Baltic Sea, but has not yet decided the form: Mare Balticum or Mare Baltica. "We had wanted the two ships' names to be as similar as possible ... But not anymore," said Johannes Johansson, managing director of Estline, the half-owner of both ships.
In Helsinki, the Finnish Central Criminal Police reported Tuesday that authorities have identified all the 94 recovered victims of the disaster.
"All the victims who were found have now been identified," detective superintendent Bjorn Weckstrom told Reuters.
A total of 94 bodies were recovered after the disaster. One was taken to Sweden for identification, and the rest to the department for forensic medicine at Helsinki University.
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