Moments after this footage clip was taken six people – including two young children – drowned ad many more struggled to get to safety when the Sindbad sank off the coast of Hurghada in Egypt
Moment tourist submarine begins to sink with it’s hatches open
Harrowing footage shows the seconds before a tourist submarine full of excited families started to sink as those on board begin to scream and panic. Moments after this footage clip was taken, six people – including two young children – drowned and many more struggled to get to safety when the semi-submersible Sindbad vessel sank off the coast of Hurghada in Egypt.
The horror unfolded as 45 tourists were preparing for an underwater pleasure trip to seethe Red Sea’s famous coral reefs. According to the victims, the submarine began to dive right as people were boarding, while others believe there was a technical fault on board as the boat filled with water as it went down for the first time with people inside.
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Footage shows the pleasure submarine sinks, with its hatches open, filling with water as some tourists are still on the deck. People begin to scream, with one father realising the danger and passing his children to the pier, before going back to help others.
Dramatic accounts of the Hurghada tourist submarine horror have emerged. One tourist, named Regina, was with her two children, nine and 10. She said: “We were saved by the fact that we were on the top of the submarine, we did not have time to go inside.
We were queuing at the boarding, when the submarine began to sink into the water. The Egyptian who was responsible for loading shouted ‘Stop, stop!’. But naturally no one inside heard him. He shouted to us ‘Faster, faster, go to the pontoon’ from which people were boarding.”
She told Baza media outlet: “We pushed the children out. I understood that I would not be able to climb onto the pontoon itself. I tried to swim away from the submarine. I was afraid that I would be pulled under it because of the currents.
“I swam away, sat on the structures that were built around the pontoon so that they could moor here. From there I moved to the pontoon itself. This is of course a very big tragedy. I can’t put into words how difficult this situation was.
“There was not a single life preserver, no lifebuoys, no vests, nothing at all on the pontoon itself. Rescue boats began to approach. There were no medics among them. The police and all the surrounding people tried to get people out.
“The submarine did not fully sink, it simply descended into the water at the moment when people were getting on board, and the hatches were not battened down. That is, the whole tragedy happened because of the mistake, in my opinion, of one person who began the descent without making sure that all the people were in the submarine itself and that all the hatches were battened down.
“And there were no [organised] rescue operations from the Egyptian services. These boats delivered the victims to the shore directly to the rescuers, to the ambulances.
“When we were on the boat that brought all the rescued [tourists] to the shore, there really were doctors there, offering help. They took us there in a car to our hotel, fortunately it was located right next door, our hotel.”
Another eyewitness said: “A Russian father realised in time what was happening. He threw the kids on the pier and started helping the other people get out with another man. As you can see in the video, the boat started going down when not all the people had gone in yet, and it ended up going under water in a split second.”
Mother of two Dr Kristina Valliulina, 39, a paediatrician originally listed as dead by the Egyptian authorities, survived the submarine tragedy with her two daughters.