4 Nov 2011

Ferry fire in Red Sea

8:35 am on 4 November 2011

More than 1200 passengers have been evacuated from a ferry that caught fire in the Red Sea.

Egyptian officials said all the passengers had been saved, but officials in Jordan said a Jordanian man had died after jumping overboard.

The ferry was travelling between the Jordanian port of Aqaba and Nuweiba in Egypt. The BBC reports it was about 15 nautical miles from Aqaba when the fire broke out.

Most of the passengers were said to be Egyptian migrant workers.

In 2006, more than 1,000 people were killed after a ferry crossing from Saudi Arabia and Egypt sank in the Red Sea.