By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
CAIRO (Worthy News) – Egyptian authorities confirmed Monday that at least 16 people are missing, including foreigners, and 28 have been rescued after a tourist boat sank in the Red Sea.
The boat Sea Story was carrying 44 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 13 crew on a multi-day diving trip, sank Monday near the town of Marsa Alam, the Red Sea Governorate said.
Authorities did not indicate the possible cause of the incident and added that people onboard suggested that a wave hit the boat and caused it to capsize.
Weather forecasters had reportedly warned against marine activities for Sunday and Monday.
Red Sea Governor Amr Hanafi said that preliminary reports suggested a sudden large wave struck the boat, capsizing it within 5-7 minutes. “Some passengers were in their cabins, which is why they were unable to escape,” he added in the statement.
DISTRESS CALL
The governorate said the boat’s distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. local time. It had departed Sunday from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam, a tourist town in the south-eastern located on the western shore of the Red Sea.
Worthy News established that the crew had planned to return to Hurghada Marina, the coastal capital of the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt, on November 29.
It was unclear why the boat had left despite apparently meteorological warnings, which added to concerns about safety precautions surrounding marine activities in Egypt.
In 2023, three British tourists went missing, and 12 were rescued after a motor boat caught fire off Marsa Alam.
The year 2016 saw one of the worst sea disasters in Egypt when a boat carrying about 600 migrants sank in the Mediterranean, killing at least 170 people. At that time, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said, “Egyptians must join hands with the government” to prevent a repeat of such a tragedy.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
A remote Indigenous community in western Canada was reeling Friday after a grizzly bear mauled a group of schoolchildren and teachers on a forest trail in British Columbia, injuring 11 people — two of them critically, according to local officials.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was expected to join a high-level phone call Friday on a U.S.-Russian proposal to end the war in Ukraine, amid escalating deadly attacks in the embattled nation, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Delegates assessed the damage from a fire that briefly spread through several pavilions at the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil on Thursday, the latest setback for the gathering known as COP30.
A strong 5.5-magnitude earthquake shook central Bangladesh on Friday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 300, authorities and local media said, as buildings in the capital Dhaka swayed violently and panicked residents fled into the streets.
Authorities say a boiler at a glue-making factory in eastern Pakistan exploded on Friday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 21 others, underscoring broader concerns over safety standards in the Islamic nation.
At least scores of students were abducted from a Catholic mission school in Nigeria’s troubled North Central region early Friday, just days after gunmen attacked a church, killing two people and taking dozens of worshippers hostage, officials and witnesses said.
The Israel Defense Forces announced Thursday that it uncovered one of the most extensive and sophisticated Hamas tunnel systems discovered to date, a sprawling underground route running more than seven kilometers (4.3 miles) and plunging approximately 25 meters (82 feet) underground beneath Rafah.