Horrific

I don't know why it seems as if every time I turn around, there's another massive accident or disaster taking thousands of lives, but I'd really like it to stop.

Crews Search for Survivors in Red Sea

SAFAGA, Egypt - An Egyptian ferry carrying about 1,300 people sank in the Red Sea early Friday during bad weather, and rescue ships and helicopters pulled dozens of survivors and bodies from the water. Some 180 escaped on lifeboats, an official said.

Most of the passengers were Egyptian workers returning from their jobs in Saudi Arabia. At least four Saudi and four Egyptian ships were involved in the search effort, arriving about 10 hours after the 35-year-old ferry was believed to have sank.

1300 people. That's getting close to the numbers of the Titanic. (It's unknown exactly how many died in the Titanic, but most seem to agree that it's above 1500.)

Egyptian regulations require life jackets on the boat, but implementation of safety procedures are often lax. It was not known if the ship had enough life jackets and whether the passengers put them on when the ship sank.

Rescue efforts appeared confused. Egyptian officials initially turned down a British offer to divert a warship to the scene to help out and a U.S. offer to send a P3-Orion maritime naval patrol aircraft to the area. The British craft, HMS Bulwark, headed toward from the southern Red Sea where it was operating, then turned around when the offer was rejected.

But then Egypt reversed itself and asked for both the Orion and the Bulwark to be sent, said Cdr. Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain. The Bulwark is part of a Dutch-controlled multinational task force, which includes assets from the 5th Fleet and British navy.

Bravo to these ships for attempting to help. There's more to the article; you may wish to read the whole thing.

You know, if Pat Robertson makes any sort of statement about this being "God's wrath against the people of Egypt" or something else equally as asinine, can we please just shoot him out of a cannon into the sun already?