Italian authorities are not certain how many people are still missing from the Norman Atlantic ferry off Corfu, with evacuation complete.
One man died trying to escape the ship, which was on a night journey from Greece to Italy, and a further nine bodies were later found.
More than 400 people were rescued amid gale-force winds and thick smoke.
Survivors have described “scenes from hell” as order broke down aboard the ferry ahead of the rescue.
They gave accounts of passengers trampling over and hitting each other to be the first in line to be taken to safety.
Captain Argilio Giacomazzi was widely praised for staying on board to see the evacuation through, more than 36 hours after sending out a distress signal.
It is unclear what caused the fire to break out on December 28 on the car deck of the ferry. Italian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation.
“We cannot say how many people may be missing,” Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said at a press conference on Monday evening.
Photo Italian Navy
He said the reason a definitive figure could not be given was because of errors on the passenger list, no-shows at boarding or people getting off at a stopover on the Greek island of Igoumenitsa.
“That is why we are continuing our [search] effort: we cannot know what the exact number was,” he added.
Maurizio Lupi said it was up to the departure port to ensure the passenger manifest tallied with the list of those people who were rescued.
Italian navy Admiral Giovanni Pettorino said 80 of those rescued had not been on the passenger list at all. Correspondents say his remarks give credence to suggestions from Italy that the ferry may have been transporting a number of illegal migrants trying to reach Italy.
Greek Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis also said the passenger list was “possibly inaccurate” and complained about inadequate communications with Italy.
“I strongly doubt that all the names on the list are real,” he told Mega TV.
“We have two persons with the same name who turned out to be one person.”
Survivors described how the fire which began on Sunday morning had created chaotic scenes on board, with the crew apparently overwhelmed by the crisis.
Those recued have complained there were initially no fire alarms and no knocks on the door from the crew to awake sleeping passengers as thick and billowing smoke made its way into their cabins.
As passengers tried to escape from the flames by going on to the deck, they were confronted with freezing cold rain and huge waves while heat from the fire below scalded their feet.
It was then that pushing and shoving broke out as passengers fought each other to a lifeboats slot or a helicopter basket.
Some survivors suffered from hypothermia or mild carbon monoxide poisoning ahead of their rescue just after dawn Monday.
More than 230 passengers and 34 crew members were Greek nationals. Others came from Italy, Turkey, Albania, Germany, the UK and several other countries.
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Rescue operations are under way as more than 120 people are still stranded on the deck of a blazing Norman Atlantic ferry amid freezing temperatures off the Greek island of Corfu.
Helicopter crews have been winching small groups of people to safety despite gale-force winds.
The Italian coast guard said 356 of the 478 people on board had been evacuated by early Monday, December 29, after a fire broke out on a car deck on Sunday, December 28.
One person is confirmed dead but a passenger has said he saw more bodies.
The Italian navy said that the body of a Greek man and his injured wife had been removed from the ship, Norman Atlantic which had been travelling from Patras in Greece to Ancona in Italy.
It is unclear how the man died but the Greek coastguard told AP that both passengers had been found trapped in a lifeboat escape chute.
The first rescue ship carrying 49 people arrived at the Italian port of Bari early on Monday morning.
A Turkish man who was on board told local reporters that he was sure that he had seen more bodies.
“I saw four people dead, with my own eyes,” he said.
Helicopters crews fitted with night vision equipment worked through the night to rescue passengers despite difficult conditions. One hundred people were taken off the ferry during the night, the Italian coast guard said.
Italian Air Force helicopter pilot, Major Antonio Laneve told Italian state TV that “acrid smoke” had filled his helicopter cabin, making the rescue even more challenging.
Most of the rescued passengers have been transferred to nearby ships, although some have been taken directly to hospital.
Three children and a pregnant woman are among those being treated in hospital for hypothermia, according to the Associated Press news agency
Passengers described panicking as the heat rose, then freezing as they stood on decks awaiting rescue.
The wife of one of the cooks told journalists she had had a call from her husband saying: “I cannot breathe, we are all going to burn like rats – God save us.”
Another passenger told Greek TV station Mega: “We are outside, we are very cold, the ship is full of smoke, the boat is still burning, the floors are boiling, underneath the cabins it must be burning since 5 o’clock, the boats that came (to rescue us) are gone, and we are here. They cannot take us.”
Coast Guard Admiral Giovanni Pettorino said that a member of the Italian military had been injured during the rescue.
Nearby merchant vessels aligned themselves in formation to protect the ship from waves and facilitate the rescue.
“This is a complicated rescue mission. The visibility is poor and the weather conditions are difficult, but we are confident because there are a good number of ships in the area,” Greece Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said.
Miltiadis Varvitsiotis later told reporters the fire had been brought partly under control.
Most of those on board were Greek. Greek maritime official Nikos Lagadianos told AP that 234 passengers and 34 crew members were from Greece.
Others came from Italy, Turkey, Albania, Germany and several other countries.
It is not yet clear what caused the fire.
The chief executive of the Visentini group that owns the vessel, Carlo Visentini, said the ferry had passed a recent technical inspection despite a “slight malfunction” in one of the fire doors, Italy’s Ansa news agency reports.
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