Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 17th of January 2016

Case name: 2016_01_17-AEG186
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 1 emergency situation in the Aegean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Sunday the 17th of January 2016, at around 8am, our shift team was alerted to a group of 30 people, including many children and women, who had stranded on the Greek island of Kastellorizo. We reached the group at 9.20am and they informed us that they had already informed the Greek coastguards. We then reached out to the Port Authority on Kastellorizo and were told that a vessel could not go out to rescue them at the moment as the weather conditions were too difficult. They would try and reach the group on land but the group should try and find a road. When we informed the group at 9.35am they said it was impossible for them to climb the rocks up as they had a disabled man amongst them, pregnant women and many children. The Port Authority insisted that they would have to reach the road as they would not be able to rescue them from their current location. A few hours later, 12.20pm we learned that some of the group had tried to find a road while the rest was remaining at the initial location. At 2.32pm they were still waiting. The police informed us at 3.42pm that they had found the group. A few minutes later we received the confirmation from the group that they had been rescued.