6A
Thursday, September 29, 1994
NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Faulty seals, bow door likely cause of ferry disaster
The Associated Press
TURKU, Finland — Fridgi waters and raging winds turned the Baltic into a sea of death for more than 800 people when a ferry suddenly listed and sank in a storm early yesterday. Authorities said 141 others survived.
In one of the world's worst maritime disasters in recent years, helicopters and ships searched for survivors and bodies off Finland's southwestern coast. They checked dozens of black-and-orange rafts from the ferry Estonia bobbing in the surging waters, but many were empty.
Officials said it was too early to say what caused the ferry to sink shortly after midnight about 25 rules from Uto island.
A surviving crew member said water started pouring through the Estonia's front cargo door and the ship rolled over and sank quickly.
Swedish safety inspectors had criticized the seals on the door before the ferry left Talium, Estonia, on Tuesday evening for the 230-mile trip to Stockholm, Sweden. But they said they did not spot anything dangerous.
"We saw nothing that gave us a hint that something would go wrong," one of the inspectors, Ake Sjoblom, told Swedish television. "If we had, we would have sounded the alarm immediately."
Raimo Tillikainen, the Finnish coast guard commodore coordinating the search, said four ships would remain in the area last night, but he held out no hope more survivors would be found.
Finnish police counted 141 survivors of the 964 people aboard, leaving 823 people missing and presumed dead.
It was not immediately known whether the ferry's captain survived
bers. It was less than half-full.
Tillikaina said the Estonia carried
7116 passengers and 188 crew mem-
More than half the passengers came from Sweden, and the nation of 8.5 million people was in mourning yesterday.
The first word of the ferry's trouble came shortly after midnight, after it radioed Estonian authorities: "We are sinking! ... The engines have stopped!"
Survivors described scenes of panic as the ferry listed and started sinking in pitch darkness amid 35-foot waves. The water was 54 degrees and winds were blowing around 55 mph.
Some news reports said the ship went down in five minutes, while others put the time at closer to 30 minutes.
Ship's engineer Henrik Stillace, 24, said that the bow door was not properly closed and that water started pouring in.
Twenty helicopters and 15 ships joined the search.
Juancho Cruz / Knight-Ridder Tribune
Baltic Sea swallows ship, 823 passengers
Source: News reports
The Associated Press
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Thirty minutes after the sea began pouring into the ferry Estonia, it was all over. For most of the 964 people aboard, there was no chance to save themselves before the ship was swallowed by the frigid, raging Baltic.
"Mayday...Estonia," the ship's radioman called. "We have listed 20 degrees to 30 degrees and have blacked out."
Six minutes later, the ship disappeared off Swedish radar screens.
From survivors' accounts and news reports, the final minutes of Scandanavia's worst maritime disaster, in which more than 800 people died:
The German-built ferry leaves the dock in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, at 7 p.m. Tuesday bound for Stockholm. The passengers included 70 police workers from Stockholm attending a union seminar, 21 teenagers from a Bible schooland 56 retirees on a group excursion.
too heavily in nearly 20-foot waves.
At about 8:30 p.m., the ferry runs into heavy weather. The band stops playing because the ship is swaying
Many of the passengers retire, some to cabins nine decks below the bridge, to sleep out the rest of the 230-mile journey.
Sometime after mudnight, engineer Henrik Sillaste, watching via closedcircuit television, notices water coming in from the front bow door. Thinking it's rain water, he and the other engine room workers turn on the ship's bilge pumps.
Fifteen minutes later, the Estonia's pumps are overwhelmed. The 28 trucks, two buses and several cars in the hold are inundated.
Nenee Kauk wakes up in his cabin in blackness, throws on his clothes and runs out onto the deck. People are dashing up the stairs to the decks where the lifeboats are stored. The weak and elderly are left behind.
Crew members help panicky passengers into lifeboats. Some people are bleeding from hitting their heads
The Estonia is listing 30 degrees off center. Two of the ship's four engines shut off. Sillaste and his two co-workers abandon the engine room, climbing up a shaft to escape.
as the boat shifted. Kaik grabs a life jacket. As he does, the boat falls completely onto its left side, and the smokestack hits the water.
At 1:24 a.m., from his post on shore, Finnish Coast Guard LL. Ilkka Karpala hears the Estonia radioman's mavdav call.
A group of passengers form a human chain across the steeply slanting deck, passing lifebackes to people who have fallen into the water.
A second ship responds, asking for the ferry's location.
"I don't know, because we had this blackout," the radioman says. After a few seconds of silence, he comes back and gives coordinates.
Just after 1:30 a.m., the ship disappears off radar.
Karppala does not hear what Estonian radio reports as the 14-year-old ship's final call of distress: "We are sinking! ... The engines have stopped!"
As the ship sinks, stern-first in waters more than 180 feet deep, most passengers have failed to reach the deck. Forty covered lifeboats make it into the turbulent 54-degree water.
Democrats struggle as elections loom
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In a depressing election season for Democrats, Sen. Kent Conrad is one of the lucky ones never mentioned on the growing list of endangered incumbents.
"A majority of the time, I vote with the Republican leader, Bob Dole," Conrad says in his latest television ad. "I support the president when I think he's right ... and I oppose his policies when they are wrong for North Dakota."
Consider it insurance against a Democratic meltdown.
With just 40 days to Election Day, Democrats see trouble — and Republicans opportunity — everywhere they look.
The climate was supposed to be bad for Democrats this year, because of historical trends in midterm elections, festering antigovernment and anti-incumbent sentiment and President Clinton's sub-par public standing. But even the party's pessimists say it's worse than they believed possible,
and the Republicans hardly disagree.
GOP pollster Bill McInturff said, "I've waited 15 years for this to happen. The world has turned."
After all, many Democratic incumbents have been hamstruck from a campaign standpoint because Congress is in session in Washington, and experience and deeper campaign bank accounts often tilt races toward incumbents in the end.
Given all that, some Republicans are beginning to suggest Election Day might bring a powerful GOP tide, one of those rare swings in politics where one party wins a bunch of races it shouldn't.
Still, Democrats acknowledge that if elections were held today, they likely would suffer a debacle, probably losing control of the Senate and coming perilously close to the 40-seat loss that would give Republicans a House majority, too.
Clinton, Yeltsin reducing arms
The Associated Press
"We're succeeding in tackling some hard challenges." Clinton said at upbeat East Room news conference with Yeltsin.
WASHINGTON — In a bargain between ever-closer friends, President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin pledged yesterday to sharply accelerate the dismantling of thousands of nuclear weapons. The Russian president also promised not to sign new arms deals with Iran.
Indeed, there were agreements on American investment in Russia, space collaboration, customs cooperation and joint efforts to combat crime. In all, deals were signed for up to $1 billion in ventures in Russia.
However, the most important accord concerned nuclear arms.
The United States and Russia agreed to speed up nuclear cutbacks under the START II agreement once it is ratified. Clinton said the move would shave several years from the timetable; Yeltsin said perhaps seven years or more.
The treaty, reached last year, calls for reducing long-range nuclear warheads to 3,000-3,500 on each side by 2003.
There were doubts in Moscow that the Russian parliament would ratify START II because of the expense of dismantling missiles and the military's attachment to some of the weapons. Yet, American officials said they were confident of ratification.
The U.S. Senate has not approved the treaty either.
The war in Bosnia remained a point of dispute, with Yeltsin saying Russia firmly opposes lifting an arms embargo on the Muslimled Bosnian government, as Clinton proposes. However, both sides got some breathing room after the Muslims suggested a six-month delay on any action.
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