A boat with 18 people on board capsized and sank on Thursday morning near the island of Milos in Greece’s Cyclades archipelago.
According to Greece’s state-run AMNA news agency, the 18 passengers were all Greek nationals.
Among them, there were three minors. The boat was a private yacht that sank for unknown reasons. The incident took place in the sea northwest of the island of Milos.
The rescue operation was undertaken by the high-speed ferry ”Sea Jet 2,” a freighter and a launch boat on which a Coast Guard officer was on board.
All the passengers of the yacht are expected to be transferred to the port of Milos.
Where is Milos Island?
Milos is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. Milos is the southwesternmost island in the Cyclades group.
The Venus de Milo statue, which is now exhibited in the museum of Louvre in Paris, and the Asclepius of Milos of the British Museum, were both discovered on the island.
Other famous ancient statues to be found on Milos was were a Poseidon and an archaic Apollo statue, now exhibited in Athens.
Milos is a popular tourist destination during the Summer.
The municipality of Milos also includes the uninhabited offshore islands of Antimilos and Akradies. The combined land area is 160.147 square kilometers (61.833 square miles) and the permanent residents of the island number approximately 5,000.
Latest Major Shipwreck in Greece Was Off Santorini
The Santorini shipwreck of the cruise ship MS Sea Diamond has been a permanent feature of the Greek island for the last 14 years.
The people of Santorini are still fighting for the removal of the wreck that has become a hot potato between stakeholders as it evolves into a silent environmental time bomb for the world-famous Greek island and its beautiful caldera.
The tragic incident took the lives of a French father and daughter and made international headlines for the difficult and dangerous evacuation of 1,195 passengers, mostly Americans and Canadians, on April 5, 2007.
Although superficial decontamination of the waters and nearby shoreline did take place in the months following the tragedy, and an unsuccessful pumping operation took place two years later, local people consider the ongoing containment measures insufficient to counteract the threat.
They have been pleading for the complete salvage and removal of the MS Sea Diamond from the caldera ever since.
They fear that the inevitable corrosion of its steel fuel tanks will cause an enormous fuel leak sooner or later, which would lead their pristine marine environment into catastrophe and devastate the island’s marine ecosystem.
Recently, Loucas Lignos, the representative of two local groups protesting the handling of the incident, tells Greek Reporter that so far, both the owner of the ship and successive Greek governments have failed the community in not taking action to eliminate the looming environmental destruction stemming from the ship’s fully loaded fuel tanks.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
