The adverse weather conditions that continue to prevail on the island are hampering searches for missing persons and bodies after the shipwreck with migrants that occurred on Wednesday 5 October at Diakofti in Kythera.
According to kythera.news, the Coast Guard frogmen are in Diakofti, waiting for better weather conditions to continue the search.
"I saw people lost at sea"
"Punch" in the stomach are the tragic images faced by those involved in the efforts to locate and rescue the ten missing castaways from the sailing ship's wreck in Kythera.
ERT's envoy Alexandros Kalafatis was at the port of Diakofti where on Friday morning 7 Beaufort winds were blowing, making the efforts to locate the ten missing persons extremely difficult.
At the site of the refugee tragedy, ERT's reporter spoke with a volunteer who, thanks to his timely reflexes, contributed to the rescue of eighty shipwrecked people from land. Michalis Protopsaltis, owner of a tow truck, spoke to "Connections" about what he experienced during the rescue effort of the castaways on Wednesday night (5/10) in Kythera.
I saw migrants falling down the cliff
"In a loft on the rocks there were 90 people lying on the rocks. We managed to get eighty of them out. If we had delayed a little longer, because the swell was too big, more would have been lost," said Mr. Protopsaltis, who managed with his forklift to rescue the migrants who were struggling clinging to the hidden rocks.
"We took down a sack and in this way we saved them. The island authorities and the islanders saved all these people. This must be made known to everyone. Eighty people were saved," Protopsaltis said.
"I saw people getting lost, falling off the cliff and drowning," the eyewitness told ERT, describing the desperate efforts of the castaways.
"We brought a big crane with a truck to this point, tied a bag (big bag) where we put building materials and with long straps we lowered it down. One or two (castaways) would get into the bag depending on how the wave was, we would lift the bag and bring them to the surface," he described the process of disentangling people from the rocks.
Source: in.gr
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