Surviving crew members of the Dany F II on Friday told of the horror that started Thursday afternoon when their ship was caught in a bad storm off the coast of Tripoli, according to dpa. The Panamanian-flagged vessel had been carrying thousands of sheep and cattle from the Uruguay capital of Montevideo to the Syrian port of Tartus when it was hit by Thursday night"s storm and changed course for Lebanon. "We felt the ship hit something hard and then it was as if we were watching the film Titanic, the whole ship just turned onto its side and sank," said Ahmed Khan, a crew member from Pakistan. As he swam between the massive waves to reach the Lebanese shore, he could see the floating livestock, Khan told the German Press Agency dpa. "Sheep and cattle were floating on the water around where the ship sank," he said. "I thought my heart would stop from the cold and fatigue until I was saved by the UN peacekeepers in the middle of last night." The ship"s around 83 crew were mostly Pakistani but also included Australian, Russian, Lebanese, Syrian, the Filipino, British and Uruguayan nationals. According to Uruguay"s ambassador to Lebanon, the ship was denied entry at Tartus, where it was heading, because of a lack of available berths. It then returned to open waters where it ran into the storm. An international UN peacekeeping mission responded to the SOS call for help. "I heard the captain sending rescue calls and then I heard him saying the engine stopped. ... That is all I can remember," said a shivering survivor before being rushed off to a hospital in Tripoli. A Lebanese army officer near Tripoli told dpa the rescue mission was proving difficult because of "the high waves and because there are a lot of dead animals floating in the water." He said the UN mission would continue its rescue efforts through the night. Port officials in Tripoli said the vessel"s manifesto showed it was carrying 10,000 sheep and 18,000 cattle. The commander of the United Nations Interim Forces in Southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), General Claudio Graziano, described the accident as "tragic" and hoped that the joint efforts by the Lebanese army and the UN Maritime Task Force would minimize the number of casualties. At least nine bodies had been recovered late Friday, among them the captain, a Briton. According to UN accounts some 30 crew members are still missing.
