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1,000 ferry passengers missing in Red SeaShip went down amid high seas, bad weather
 Rescue boats search the Red Sea on Friday for survivors of a ferry sinking. RELATED
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSSAFAGA, Egypt (CNN) -- Rescuers who plucked more than 340 people from the chilly Red Sea were continuing to search the water Saturday for hundreds of other people feared dead after an Egyptian ferry sank with about 1,400 people on board. The cause of the accident was not immediately known, and the Egyptian government ordered an investigation. However, some survivors at a hospital in Hurghada told CNN they saw smoke, which smelled as if it came from an electrical fire, about two and a half hours into the trip. Hurghada is off Egypt's north-central Red Sea coast. The seas were rough when the Al Salam Boccaccio 98 capsized, said Transport Minister Mohamed Loutfy Mansour, who said Saturday there were 343 survivors. By daylight Saturday, 185 bodies had been pulled from the 1,000-meter deep (3,000 foot), officials said. The ferry -- which was carrying passengers and freight -- had about 1,300 passengers and 100 crew members on board, Egyptian officials said, near its capacity of 1,487 passengers. The ferry had departed Dubah, in western Saudi Arabia, en route to Egypt's southern port of Safaga -- about 200 kilometers (120 miles) away -- when radar contact was lost at midnight Friday (10 p.m. Thursday GMT). Hundreds of relatives -- many of them sobbing -- kept vigil near the port Saturday, waiting to find out the fate of the missing. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif planned to visit the port Saturday. An official from the El Salam Maritime Transport Co, the Cairo-based company that owned the aging ferry, the Al Salam Boccaccio 98, read a list of passengers to the crowd Friday night, but no names of survivors, prompting anger and frustration from relatives. "There is definitely a big concern and fear as to the numbers of the people, the deaths in this very, very tragic event," Mansour said. A Maritime Transport spokesman said the ship was certified to carry passengers until 2010 and was fully compliant with maintenance regulations. However, one man in the crowd told CNN that he had taken the same ship on the same route a month ago and that the ship appeared overloaded on that trip, packed with passengers and laden with eight large trucks filled with freight, the man said. He also said the clasps that secured lifeboats to the ship were rusted. Other former passengers also reported that the ferry was antiquated. "These sorts of ships are famous for having stability problems," said David Osler of Lloyd's Maritime Magazine, from London. "We can't rule out anything at this stage." Offer rejectedEgypt's state-run Nile TV said the passengers included at least 115 foreigners, about 100 of them Saudi nationals. Most of those on board were Egyptian laborers returning from jobs in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. State Department said no Americans were aboard. Four Egyptian frigates and a navy destroyer, along with coast guard boats and helicopters were at the search-and-rescue site, about 95 kilometers ( 57 miles) from Hurghada, said Adel Shoukri, a spokesman for the transport company. Egyptian government officials asked mariners in the Saudi port of Jeddah for help, and Saudi Arabia sent two vessels. Egypt turned down Britain's offer to send an amphibious assault ship, saying the ship was too large for the search effort. The ferry, which was carrying five trucks and 22 cars in addition to its passengers, was to have arrived at its destination at 2:30 a.m. Friday (12:30 a.m. GMT), the governor of Egypt's Red Sea district told Nile TV. Rear Adm. Mahfouz Marzouk, head of the Suez Port Authority, said there was no collision. "It is not possible because we covered all these areas with radar," he told CNN. "If it were something like that, of course, we would have another ship or a distress signal or something like that. We didn't pick up any contact by wireless communication or by radar." The ship, which was built in 1970 and launched in Italy, flew a Panamanian flag. It was refurbished in 1990 at an Egyptian shipyard. The vessel was involved in a collision in 1999, according to a ferry company spokesman. -- Cairo Bureau Chief Ben Wedeman and Correspondent Paula Hancocks contributed to this report 
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