Friday, February 03, 2006

Math Problem

I was an English major so please forgive my mathematical impertinence, but if 1300 people were on board a shipwreck and about a 100 are rescued, doesn't that mean that 1200 have been lost? Shouldn't the story read "Hundreds Dead After Egyptian Ship Disaster"?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_ship_sinks

Dozens Dead After Egyptian Ship Disaster
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago
An Egyptian ferry carrying about 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea overnight during bad weather, and rescue ships and helicopters pulled dozens of bodies from the water Friday, an official said. About 100 survivors in lifeboats were rescued.
An Egyptian Embassy spokesman told the British Broadcasting Corp. that "dozens of bodies of victims" had been pulled from the choppy waters between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The 35-year-old ship, Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98, went down 40 miles off the Egyptian port of Hurghada, the head of the Egyptian Maritime Authority, Mahfouz Taha Marzouk, told The Associated Press. The cause was unknown, and no distress signal was received. The ship went down between midnight and 2 a.m., a maritime official said.
Britain's top naval officer said he diverted the warship HMS Bulwark to the north Red Sea site, and it will arrive within two days. But the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain said Egyptian authorities turned down an American offer to divert a U.S. P3-Orion maritime naval patrol aircraft to the area.
An official at the maritime authority control room in Suez said at least 20 bodies had been pulled from the water, and 100 people in five lifeboats were rescued. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Ayman al-Kaffas, a spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in London, told the BBC that "a massive search-and-rescue effort" was underway, and "dozens of bodies of victims" had been pulled from the water. The water temperature averages in the upper 60s during February.
Four Egyptian rescue ships reached the scene Friday afternoon, about 10 hours after the ship likely went down.

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