Costa Allegra Drifting With Passengers On Upper Deck
The 43 year old Costa Allegra is currently drifting in the Indian Ocean after yesterday’s fire.
The fire in the engine room was quickly extinguished, however power to the ship was knocked out and has not been restored resulting in the ship drifting.
Tugs and a French trawler are on their way to the ship but are not expected to reach it for at least another day.
Costa Cruises have said that the Allegra is currently about 260 miles southwest of the Seychelles and that the fire started due to an electrical fault.
The ship left Madagascar on Saturday with 636 passengers aboard bound for the main port of Victoria in the Seychelles.
The Allegra was not originally built as cruise ship. It began life as the Annie Johnson container ship before being converted to a cruise ship in 1986.
cruiseastute.com says …
“The Costa Allegra is certainly an unusual design for a cruise ship and is much older than the rest of the Costa fleet, however this is unlikely to have played a part in this incident.
Fire onboard a ship, particularly in the middle of an ocean, is one of the worst nightmares for a cruise line. It seems in this case however that the fire was contained and put out quickly meaning that there is no danger to passengers.
The problem at the moment is the lack of power. This is not likely to be significant from a navigational point of view as the ship is drifting far from land and the tugs will easily be able to tow her back to port. However, passengers will be experiencing a high degree of discomfort. It’s very hot in the Indian Ocean at this time of year and the ship’s airconditioning will not be working. Additionally there is no power for lights meaning that passengers will have to be kept on deck or at least near it, as seen in the emerging photos. Food will also be a problem. Most of the food onboard cruise ships is either fresh or frozen and of course the freezers will not be working.
I don’t think there’s much to be overly concerned about and the passengers don’t seem to be in imminent danger, however they will certainly be having to endure some pretty unpleasant conditions.
This is yet more bad publicity for the embattled Costa Cruises brand following last month’s Costa Concordia disaster”
